


Legend's Cub

by Tathrin



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Coming of Age, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-06-05 19:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6718318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tathrin/pseuds/Tathrin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Alan Cooper of Pirate’s Swoop entered page training three years late, he knew that it was going to be a difficult path: he was the son of Alanna the Lioness, after all, and legends are impossible to live up to. He thought he was prepared for the struggle and gossip and judgment he was going to have to endure, being the son of a legend and a commoner; he thought he would proudly ignore the sidelong looks and whispered insults, earn his shield, make his parents proud and prove the naysayers wrong. He had no idea how woefully unprepared he was for any of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline is a little wonky due to the error made during the Great Progress; please bear with the dates I have chosen and ignore the difficulties of reconciliation as best you can. (Additionally I am terrible at maths which does not help, so if you notice something that is an error--one not explained by the canonical timekeeping glitch--please point it out!)

**Autumn of 452 H.E., Pirate’s Swoop**

Alanna the Lionness was one of the most famous women—one of the most famous _people—_ in all of Tortall. Stories were told of her all across the Eastern Lands, and doubtless well beyond. She was the first female knight in over one hundred years, was the King’s Champion, and at just over thirty years old, already had more legendary deeds to her name than most bards could sing in a day. She was famed for her skill with sword, and shield, and lance, and magic. She was also famed for her temper, and her children had seen her lose that more than once.

But they all three of them agreed that they had never seen her _this_ angry before.

They clustered together at the keyhole of their parents’ study to eavesdrop—even Thom, who at nine-years-old claimed that he was far too mature to be listening at doors—not because they were ill-bred and rude, but because they were curious...and because the children of George Cooper had always been better at ferreting out secrets than at waiting meekly to learn things at their elders’ pace.

She used words that they had never heard before, and the Cooper children had heard a great many colorful words in their life—and not all from their father, whose vocabulary stretched across several languages and many city slums. Ordinarily the chance to improve their own vocabularies would have delighted the three children (even sober and mature Thom, who claimed to be too old for such things), but this time they were frightened, and shrank before their mother’s words. That was not because they feared her temper, but because they had never heard her talk this way before about the king.

That was who Alanna’s rage was directed at: Jonathan of Conté, her sworn liege lord and longtime friend.

“Festering, pox-covered, boil-licking canker sore!” Alanna snarled, and kicked something wooden that shattered. She swore again at the pain in her toes, but did not stop in her diatribe until her breath ran out. Her husband took advantage of the pause in vitriol to finally press for details:

“Lass, I cannae join ye in yer wrath if ye don’t tell me what exactly it is Jon’s done that has ye so on yer stitches.”

“He’s giving her a year of probation, George!”

The children outside the heavy door exchanged curious glances followed by shrugs; they didn’t know what their mother was talking about. Fortunately their father did.

“The lass Keladry?”

“Yes! A year, George! Of probation! All because Lord—” the word she used then had even Thom gasping “—Wyldon bullied him. Pah!” Alanna actually spat on the floor, so outraged that she resorted to not just common and uncommon language, but common behavior as well. “And I’m not to go near her! I’m not to so much as _speak_ to her! If I do, I might magic her into cheating, because there’s no way a _girl_ can earn a shield without _cheating!_ ”

Alanna’s rage boiled over into a wordless snarl, followed by ragged, hateful tears. Alan would have crept away, too bothered by the idea of his mother _crying_ to keep listening, if his sister had not fastened hard fingers around his wrist and hung on. Thom seemed too shocked to even breathe, let alone move away from the door. Alianna’s face was pale, but the light in her hazel eyes was fierce, as if she wanted to charge into battle against the thing that made their mother cry. Alan just wanted to escape, but couldn’t do that with Aly hanging on him.

The children listened long enough to finally puzzle out what had their mother so upset: Keladry of Mindelan, a name they’d been hearing crowed about for weeks, was still to train as a knight—but she was not going to be treated like a regular page, and their mother wasn’t allowed to even talk to her. Alan watched a conflicted series of emotions pass across his sister’s face, but said nothing; Aly wasn’t alone in having jealous, uncomfortable thoughts about Keladry of Mindelan, who sounded like she was already their mother’s hero. Thom’s face closed up tight, like it did when he was thinking hard and didn’t want to talk about his thoughts. Alan just felt cold, like he had swallowed too much snow, the lump having settled in the pit of his stomach and refusing to melt.

“I can’t stay here long, George,” Alanna said eventually, after the swearing and sniffling had faded. “I just—I can’t sit still. I need to find something to fight, or...”

“Or ye’ll go chargin’ back in and ye’ll fight what’s making ye angry.”

“And that’s Jon,” Alanna said grimly, “so I know I’d best not. Even if I’d like nothing more than to wring his neck right now. So I need somewhere else to direct my anger.”

“Listen to ye, all grown up.”

That was followed by the muffled sound of a blow, their father’s yelp, and then his gentle chuckle. “I understand, lass,” he said softly. “Stay a day at least, and see the children. I’ll send out me folk for whispers, and see if they can’t turn up somethin’ worth distracting yerself with.”

“All right,” Alanna said. She sounded more tired than the children could ever remember hearing her, even after battles and sieges and giants. There was a nuzzling, cuddling sound that all three of the young Coopers were familiar with. Aly made a face, and released Alan’s wrist. She was the first to creep away. Alan lingered for another moment, just in case there was more of import to hear, but their parents’ voices had turned too soft to be made out through the heavy wood of the door.

Thom was the last to leave, and he avoided his siblings when he did. His face was drawn tight, and his brows were heavy with thought. Alan wanted to ask him what he was thinking about, but didn’t dare. He knew if he did his brother would have the right to demand to know Alan’s thoughts on the matter, and Alan had yet to sort out the tangle of emotion and concern that he felt enough to make sense of his thoughts to himself, let alone to his far-too-sensible older brother.

He did know that he wouldn’t want to be in the king’s place right now for _anything_.

 

**Midwinter:**

Mother came home in time for the midwinter holiday and she had smiles for her children, although they could tell that her temper still strangled her under the seasonal cheer. The least little thing upset her and she screamed at the servants more than once, something that neither of their parents did ordinarily. It wasn’t until Maude their nursemaid threatened to put the legendary Lioness over her knee and spank her that Alanna managed to get herself under control enough to apologize to the maids and footmen she had frightened, although her temper remained close to the surface. She even yelled at George a few times, but he took her harsh words in stride; he was well-used to his wife’s temper, and as he remarked to a worried Aly one evening, he preferred to have Alanna yelling at him for things that weren’t his fault rather than at the king for things that were his. She always apologized after, anyway, apologies that George received with a warm chuckle and a sympathetic hug.

Invitations came from the palace, but Alanna tore them to tiny shreds of gilded paper and wax without even reading them. The Cooper family spent the holidays alone at Pirate’s Swoop. Even with her temper frayed Alanna’s children were glad to have her home; they could not always count on having their mother around for holidays, the way those whose mothers weren’t legends could. They did their best to make her smile, and knew better than to ask about Keladry of Mindelan, or knights and pages, or the king and Corus.

Thom spent the holidays thinking hard. When their mother’s restlessness had her questing about for a new cause to champion, and fight to chase, he approached her for a word, his expression dead serious.

Aly and Alan listened at the door again, blonde heads bent near the keyhole to catch their brother’s quiet words.

“...know it’s almost a whole year away, but I don’t see any reason to put the decision off now.”

“Don’t let my temper at the king change your choices,” Alanna said firmly. “I won’t have our squabbles dictating what you do with your life, no matter _how_ angry I am with him.”

Thom shook his head. “I’m not though, mother. I’ve been thinking about this for—for some time. And really, my decision has very little to do with—well, with all of that. It just...crystallizes things.”

“How so?” Alanna’s voice was curious, not short; she was listening then, at least, not arguing.

“I know that the Code of Chivalry is important, and I know that knights—even regular knights, not legendary ones—do a lot of good for Tortall. But it’s not a fair system, even when it’s honorable, and I don’t want to be part of it.” They heard their brother take a deep breath and say, in a tense voice, “I want to be a mage.”

Thom had wanted to be a mage ever since the siege of Pirate’s Swoop when he was six-years-old. His siblings had known it, his father had known it, his mother had probably even known it on some level, even though she hadn’t let herself admit that her oldest wasn’t going to follow her into knighthood until she had to. Outside the room, Alan and Aly both held their breath. Inside, Thom was doubtless doing the same thing, bracing against the storm of temper their mother was liable to unleash.

Instead she just said, in a voice even more strained than Thom’s, “There’s no reason why you can’t do both.”

“I know, ma, and you’re hardly the only mage-knight in the realm. But I don’t want to be a knight who practices mage-craft, I want...” Thom’s gulp was audible. “I want to be a Great Mage, like Uncle Nummy.”

He did not say, _like the dead uncle you named me for_ , but Alan knew that he and Aly weren’t the only ones thinking of their mother’s late twin brother, the one who had died before they’d been born. The one that mother still didn’t like to talk much about, the one who served as a cautionary tale whenever they were being trained in the Gift. Alan and Aly didn’t have much of it, but Thom did. Their powers took after their father’s, limited but useful, while Thom had as much magic as their mother, maybe more.

For a long time, Alanna was silent. Aly wiped sweating palms on her brother’s heavy tunic; he was too caught-up in their eavesdropping to complain, instead pressing his ear tighter against the door.

“Mage-craft is a lot of work.” It was impossible to tell Alanna’s feelings from her voice. “It takes even longer to master than getting your shield does, most of the time, and the odds of success—of being a mage like _that—_ are much longer than those of a person earning a knighthood.”

“I know,” Thom said quietly.

“It can be a lonely life if you succeed. People balk at mages—at Great Mages, like Numair—even more than they balk at legendary warriors. You’ll learn things that other people not only don’t know anything about, but aren’t interested in. You’ll want to talk about things that ordinary folk don’t, can’t, understand. Don’t _want_ to understand. Things that ordinary folk are afraid of. You’ll make more enemies than you will friends. Many people who _do_ befriend you will only do so because they want to take advantage. Even genuine friends often won’t think anything of asking you for favors from your magic.”

“I know,” said Thom, even more quietly.

“It’s dangerous. Magic can kill you if you’re not careful. At the higher levels—those that Numair works at—there aren’t a lot of people working, more because the attempt to master power like that eats up the mages who try than because there aren’t a lot of people with the potential—although there _aren’t_ a lot of people with the potential. You’ll make folk jealous, and frightened.”

“I know.”

“You’ll be in danger from those who want to prove their skills against yours, more ever than you would be as a knight. Our contests are governed by rules and kings and custom. Mages are solitary, rebellious sorts, who don’t like answering to rules or custom, and least of all to kings. Your powers and skills won’t be understood by most people, not even by most rulers for that matter, and you’ll always be called on to do things that you can’t, or don’t want to do. It’s not just idle scholarly speculation. It’s real, hard work. And it’s often thankless.”

“Ma...I know. I do. I understand that. I’ve talked to Uncle Nummy...”

This time there was no doubt what Alanna was feeling: rage boiled over, making her words sharp and angry. “Numair’s been going behind my back, coercing my children into his mad studies? I’ll skin him alive, Great Mage or no—”

“Ma, _no!_ It’s not like that. This is my idea, not Uncle Numair’s. He didn’t put me up to it, I asked _him_ about it. I...I wanted to know if he thought I even had the potential, before I risked disappointing you by bringing it up.”

All of a sudden the fire seemed to go out of Alanna. “Disappointing me?” she repeated hollowly. The twins heard a thump, like their mother had sat back down heavily.

“I know you want me to go for a knight...”

“Thom, my sweetling, I want you to do what will make you _happy_. Knighthood isn’t for everyone, and I don’t want it for all of you. Goddess knows I’d be pleased to have you earn shields like me,” Alanna added with something that sounded like wry humor, “but I know better than to think that all three of my children want to get bashed on the head and walloped with swords day-in and day-out for the rest of their lives. And I don’t want any of you to be knights just to make _me_ happy. It’s a hard life, sometimes every bit as thankless as magecraft, and I’d hate myself if I thought any of you turned to it just for _my_ sake, not because it makes _you_ happy.”

“For true?” Thom asked in a whisper.

“For true,” their mother said. From the sounds on the other side of the door, she had probably kissed him on the head. “If your path says you should be a mage, then that’s what I want for you.” A wry laugh burst from her lips. “I think I’m the last person in the world to tell someone to do what they _ought_ to in life, rather than what they _want_ to. I know how foolish that is, and how unfortunate it would be if you listened. If you want to be a mage—if you _really_ want to—then that’s what I want, too.”

“Thanks, ma,” Thom said quietly.

The rustle of cloth made it sound like she hugged him. “Look at it this way, youngster,” Alanna said drily, “you’ve saved me from several awkward situations. Now I don’t have to go visit you at the palace and worry that I’m going to take Wyldon of Cavall’s head off when I see him. That would hardly be an appropriate way to greet my son’s training master, would it?”

Thom laughed. “I don’t think you’d please Master Oakbridge, no,” he said.

Alanna laughed. The sound was a little bitter, and a little sad, and still a little angry, but she laughed.

“Well then,” she said, “I guess I owe you thanks.”

From the raised eyebrow that Aly turned on him, Alan guessed that his sister was thinking the same thing he was: it wasn’t just their mother who should be grateful to Thom for having more interest in magic than swordplay. Wyldon of Cavall should be, too—as should the king!

  

**Spring of 456 H.E., Pirate’s Swoop**

Everyone in Pirate’s Swoop was tense that spring. Alanna had come back from her roaming quests at the beginning of April, and while her children and husband were happy to see her, Alan and Aly both were under no illusions about the timing: the Lionness wanted to be near Corus while the pages were having their examinations. She wanted to be nearby to hear right away how Keladry of Mindelan fared. Alanna was tense, waiting for the results; ready to ride to the capital and knock heads together if she had to, if she thought that the girl was being treated unfairly. George was tense because his wife was, and because he was at least half-afraid that he was about to be caught in a civil war between some of his oldest friends if the examinations looked crooked and Keladry was mistreated. And Alan and Aly were tense because their parents were, yes, but also because of the timing: they could be pages now themselves, if they wanted. They could go to Corus in the fall and join the new trainees and try and earn their shields.

And distracted as their mother was by Keladry of Mindelan, both twins were certain that she wanted them to.

“I don’t ever want to be a knight,” Aly declared passionately. “I want to be a spy like da. I’m good at it, he’s said so. When I’m older, I’m going to work for the realm in secret, in the shadows, like da does.”

Alan nodded soberly. Aly had always been the one, out of the three of them, who had most taken to their father’s crooked lifestyle, although both Alan and Thom were well-versed in the arts of lock-picking, lie-spinning, and general skullduggery. You had to be, if you were a Cooper; it was as natural as breathing as well as being the source of several favorite childhood games. (Thom had written them from university to confess that the skills had come in handy for his studies, too, when the Masters were being too close-lipped for comfort. The twins had decided not to share that letter with their mother.) But Aly was the one with the gift for it, as well as the interest. To her it was so much more than just a hobby.

Neither twin doubted that it was only a matter of time before their father put Aly to work. Her talents for the trade were too good to waste, as was her enthusiasm. Mother wouldn’t be happy, but she always said that she wanted her children to follow their own paths; she would grumble, but she’d get over it.

At least, as long as _one_ of her children went for knighthood, she would...and with Thom already up to his eyeballs in spellwork, that left Alan.

He liked it, too, the knightly arts. Alan loved riding, and archery, and sparring with his siblings or friends or even his parents, although of course they could both dump him on his rear with their eyes closed if they wanted. He was a fair hand at hunting, although he didn’t like the bloody killing part, even when Aunt Daine had explained that it was all a part of nature, and as long as he did it quick and clean and only hunted for food and not sport there was nothing wrong in the deed. (Alan had noticed that Aunt Daine didn’t eat game, though, so he wasn’t entirely sure she’d really meant everything she said. He’d stopped eating game himself for a few months, until he tired of boring meals.) Certainly Alan liked the ideals of knighthood: protecting the weak, upholding justice, defending the kingdom.

But Alan was the son of the Lionness. He couldn’t be just an ordinary knight, and he had a feeling that he would be. No gods or goddesses had ever whispered in his ear; he’d never met any animals who could talk to him, at least not without Daine to translate; he didn’t have much Gift; he didn’t have magical weapons; he didn’t have visions, or grand quests calling his name. He was just Alan, the youngest son of a legend, and he knew that in any comparison with his mother he would come off as disappointing.

He also wasn’t sure that he wanted to demonstrate any sort of tacit approval for an organization that put people on probation just because of their gender. He _was_ the son of a legend, after all. People paid attention to what he did, even if not _much_ attention, and he was afraid that it would look like he was betraying his mother if he tried for his shield—just like it would if he _didn’t_ try for his shield.

Alan didn’t know what to do.

His sister elbowed him. “Well,” she said, “what about you?”

Alan started. “What do you mean?” he yelped. “I don’t want to be a spy.”

Aly laughed at him. “Of course you don’t, dung-brains, you’d be a terrible spy. You hate lying.”

“I do not,” Alan retorted, his cheeks flushing. Aly laughed at him again. “I don’t _love_ it like you do,” Alan argued, “but I don’t _hate_ it. And I’m not bad at it, either.”

“No,” Aly admitted with a birdlike shrug, “not too bad. Better than ma, anyway.”

They both laughed at their very forthright mother. Alan had always wondered how Alanna had managed to lie about being a girl for so many years, once he was old enough to understand how terrifically _honest_ his mother was, but maybe that was how she’d done it: nobody suspects honest people of lying, their da liked to say, especially when they prove they’re bad liars. That was one of the best ways to get someone to swallow a lie: start with a bad one, to show how naturally honest you are, and then when you tell a _good_ one, they’ll swallow it because people like to feel superior. Aly was a natural at that sort of game; even Maude fell for her stories. Even Alan did, sometimes, and he knew Aly’s mind almost as well as he knew his own.

Aly sobered before her brother did, and fixed him with a green-eyed stare. Alan stopped laughing quickly. “What is it?” he asked.

“What do you want to do?” Aly asked him.

Alan ducked his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I don’t think I want to be a knight. Not right now, anyway.”

Aly put an arm around her brother’s shoulder. “I know,” she said sympathetically. “So, how do you want to explain that to ma?”

 

In the end, it was Duke Baird who helped Alan the most, and he didn’t even mean to.

Alan was sunning himself while he pretended to read on the parapet at the top of the Swoop’s main tower when Aly came to find him, the smile on her face much like that of a cat who has just stolen dinner’s fish course without the cook realizing the platter’s been emptied. Alan sat up immediately and brushed his pale hair out of his eyes. “What did you do?” he asked, without preamble.

“Sneaked a peek at ma’s letters,” Aly replied smugly, hopping up next to Alan and crossing her legs in an easy tailor’s seat. Alan wrapped his arms around his knees and frowned at his sister.

“What did you do that for?” he asked, trying to sound like he was censuring, not curious.

“She’s acting funny, and I wanted to know why,” Aly replied.

“You couldn’t have just _asked_ her?” Alan asked, even though he knew better.

Aly just grinned. “Duke Baird wrote to ask her a favor,” she told Alan. “He wants her to do something she’s never done before.”

Alan cocked an eyebrow. “He wants her to forgive His Highness, even though he hasn’t apologized?”

“Of course not.” Aly made a rude noise and shook her head. “Uncle Gary’s not stupid, he knows ma won’t forgive the king until Keladry of Mindelan becomes a knight proper. But he _does_ suggest, gently, that she stop _acting_ so mad, and come back to court. He doesn’t say it outright, of course, probably because he just knows it would make mama mad—but he did mention that having the King’s Champion and the king at odds right now isn’t to anyone’s benefit, not even the girl squire’s.”

The twins had been some of the first people in Tortall to learn that Keladry of Mindelan was now officially a squire, although she had not yet been claimed by any knight. They knew also how she had nearly been cheated out of her well-earned status, and how much their mother wanted to ride to Corus and take the girl on as _her_ squire, even though Alanna had never had a squire before. The only reason she didn’t was because she didn’t want people to be able to say that she had cheated to help Keladry win her shield—and not because the king had forbidden it. The twins knew very well that their mother would have disobeyed Uncle Jon in something she felt this passionately about, if she hadn’t also thought that he had a point.

Alanna’s cry of joy and vindication had probably been audible all the way back in Corus when she had gotten the first message about Keladry’s promotion. The twins knew that it rankled their mother that she couldn’t be there to watch the examinations herself, and she’d spent the rest of the day alternating between crowing in smug victory and threatening dire retribution against those who had tried to interfere with Keladry of Mindelan. She had also muttered crossly about how King Jonathan had better not dare let the perpetrators off the hook for any reason, least of all stupid political ones, not if he wanted to see his Champion take up arms for the crown—and not against it—ever again.

“All right,” Alan asked his sister, “what _did_ the duke ask for, then?”

“He wants ma to take a squire.”

Alan whistled. “There’s no way he doesn’t know why ma and the king are quarreling,” he pointed out, “and even if nobody told him, he’s canny enough to know that ma daren’t get close to Keladry of Mindelan if she doesn’t want people always saying she cheated to get her shield for her. He’d never suggest that ma—”

“Nope,” Aly interrupted, “of course he wouldn’t. And he didn’t. He wants ma to squire his son.”

Alan blinked. “Neal?” he asked after a moment. He pictured the Nealan he remembered: a tall, lanky boy with a clever tongue; he and Thom had gotten along all right, from what Alan remembered of their last meeting with the Queenscove family; they had both had the same sort of scholarly attitude, for all that Neal had been six years older, but the twins had been far too young to be of any interest to half-grown-up Nealan, and he too old for them to pay him much attention, either.

“Apparently Duke Baird is concerned about his son’s penchant for speaking his mind.”

This time Alan positively goggled. “So he asked _ma_ to teach him?”

Aly dissolved in giggles. “Uh-huh!” she said. “Reading between the lines, it sounds like the duke thinks that ma’s temper will be just what Nealan needs to learn to keep his mouth shut, but of course he _says_ it’s more to do with how much Nealan respects ma, and that he’ll learn discretion is important from any work they do with da—and because ma is a trained healer, and Nealan was studying that until he quit to be a knight, so ma can help teach him magic, too.”

Alan nodded thoughtfully. “That actually sounds like good reasoning,” he said, “except...”

“Ma will never take somebody _else_ as squire when she can’t have Keladry of Mindelan.” Aly sobered. “I know,” she said. “But she likes Duke Baird, and she doesn’t want to turn him down. And _that’s_ why she’s acting funny. Ma hates being conflicted.”

Alan nodded. It was a trait he shared with his mother, and one that his sister had more of than she liked to admit.

“What’s she going to do, do you think?”

“I think,” Aly said, with the shrewd look in her hazel-green eyes that she had inherited straight from their father, “that it’s going to depend very much on who asks Keladry of Mindelan to squire for them.”

 

That evening Alanna was distracted at the dinner table. Aly and Alan both knew why, of course, but since they weren’t supposed to know, they pretended not to notice. It probably wasn’t the best tactic to take in retrospect; their very shrewd father surely noticed that they weren’t as curious about their mother’s pensive attitude as they would have been were it unexplained. George didn’t say anything though; he rarely spoke about how much he guessed, even when it came to his own family.

After dinner, when the family sat together in the comfortable study that often claimed their more peaceful evenings, Alanna shook off her distraction to talk to her children although not about what was troubling her directly. Instead, she wanted to talk to them about page-training, and whether or not they had given any thought to starting it being that they were of an age to do so if they chose.

“Not me,” Aly answered bluntly. She had her story all ready too, and Alan had to admit that it was a good one. “I’m not letting anyone put _me_ on a year of probation for anything, and besides, there’s no way that _anyone_ will believe that you didn’t magic me into getting my shield. You know they wouldn’t. If I went for a knight now, I’d only make it harder for other girls later. Let Keladry of Mindelan be the sole focus of all the doubters. I’d be a distraction, and a bad one. Besides,” she added when her mother, looking wounded, opened her mouth to protest, “I hate taking orders, and I’m not much for swordplay or fighting fair. I’d be a terrible knight even if I wanted to be one, which I don’t.”

Alanna’s mouth shut with a click. Alan nearly whistled. He wondered if their parents could tell how nervous Aly was about her speech. She did a good job of keeping her emotions off her face, and her voice and pose casual, but Alan knew his twin too well to be fooled: Aly was fretting on the inside, and fretting hard. He discreetly took her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. The dampness of her palm gave away her nerves even more than her carefully-schooled expression.

“Well,” Alanna said, “that’s that, I suppose.” She exchanged a look with her husband that the twins couldn’t read, her violet eyes shadowed. “What about you, Alan?”

Alan shrugged, and decided to take a page from his sister’s book. “I wouldn’t be as distracting as Aly, to be sure,” he said slowly, “but I’d still be something else for the conservatives to whine about. And I don’t think I’m ready to have half the realm glaring at me,” he admitted truthfully, although it made his cheeks burn to sound so cowardly in front of his fearless parents. George nodded solemnly, and the expression on his mother’s face was sympathetic. “Maybe—maybe next year, or the year after,” he said, his voice catching. “Maybe after Keladry of Mindelan has her shield, and they all have to eat their words.” He swallowed, not liking that he sounded so frightened, and decided he needed to say something else. He didn’t want to get Aly in trouble by mentioning that he knew what was in their mother’s letter from Duke Baird, but maybe he didn’t have to. Alan took a deep breath, and continued: “And maybe when you and the king aren’t feuding any more. I’d feel wrong, going to Corus now, like I was betraying you or at least getting in the middle of the fight. I don’t want to do that, and you’ve got good reason to be angry at His Highness right now. But if I go for my shield _now_ , won’t it look like I’m saying I don’t see anything wrong with what he did to Keladry, and to you?” Alan met his mother’s eyes nervously. “I don’t want it to look like I approve, so I don’t want to have anything to do with knighthood right now. Not until you do.”

Alanna sat back, her expression thoughtful, maybe even a little bit impressed. “That’s a lot of political insight,” she said at last. “I admit, I didn’t expect you two to have thought things through so...shrewdly.” She still looked worried. “But I don’t want either of you compromising what _you_ want because of some silly political malcontents, nor because of how I may or may not feel about the king right now.”

George snorted. Alanna kicked him on the ankle, which only made his crooked grin stretch wider.

“All right,” Alanna admitted, “how I _do_ feel about the king right now. Look,” she said, holding up a hand to forestall them, “you don’t need to make any decisions right now—either of you. There’s some months yet before the new crop of pages heads to Corus, you can still change your minds. Think it over, the _both_ of you.” Her eyes flicked to Aly, although she mostly watched Alan as she spoke. “You don’t need to worry about politics yet. Save that for when you’re grown and don’t have a choice. Right now, it’s more important that you do what’s right for _you_. You’ll have plenty of time to worry about the realm.”

Both twins nodded seriously, although Alan could tell that Aly was faking her sober mien. On the inside, he knew, his twin was awash with relief and elation. Alan wished he felt the same but instead he just felt—conflicted.

And he hated that almost as much as their mother did.

 

It was a few weeks after their talk, with Alanna still torn-up over what to do about Nealan of Queenscove, when Roul of Goldenlake and Malorie’s Peak rode into the Swoop with the Third Company of the King’s Own. They were on their way back from Tusaine, and Sir Raoul had decided to make a detour to talk to his old friend and fellow knight. Alan and Aly were delighted to see their uncle again, as well as the many friends they had made among the King’s Own, but Raoul had come to talk to Alanna about a very serious matter: squires.

It took very little prodding from Aly for Alan to join her at the keyhole while their mother spoke to Raoul.

“Are you going to do it? He seems a decent sort. Outspoken, feisty, too clever for his own good. You’ll both be spitting fire by the end of your first day from what his cousin’s told me, and that’s sure to cheer you up.”

“I don’t need cheering up.”

The twins had to smother their giggles in each other’s shoulders.

“It’ll still make you happy.”

“Why don’t _you_ take him, then?”

“Well I’m not a healer, Baird didn’t ask me, and I’ve already got one.”

“A _squire?”_

Raoul laughed. “No, I mean Domitan of Masbolle. I think one clever lad like that is enough in the Own at any given time. You should do it.”

Alanna was silent for while.

“You can’t have her, you know,” Raoul said quietly. “The fart-spewers will never believe the girl won her shield fairly if you have any part of her training, least of all if you’re her knight-master.”

“I know that,” Alanna replied, far too quickly. “But I don’t...”

“You don’t want to take a squire if she doesn’t have a good place, too. You’d feel like you were abandoning her.”

There was a thud of fist on muscle, and a yelp from the big man. “When did you get so gods-curst insightful?”

Raoul laughed. “I’m not insightful, you’re just not very deep.”

Alanna grumbled as Raoul continued to chuckle.

“What if I took Keladry for my squire?” he asked suddenly.

“You’ve never had a squire before. Well, not in years, anyway.” Once again, it was impossible to tell what their mother thought from the tone of her voice, flat and sharp.

“True, but this year’s going to be different, and I’ve been thinking about it. It’s the Progress more than anything,” Raoul admitted, “although I’ve had her in mind for a while. Not only will a squire be handy with all this fart-spewing pageantry, but she’s actually lived in the Yamani Islands. She can stop me doing anything that would be mortally offensive—and you _know_ how I feel about etiquette. With Keladry for a squire, I won’t have to try and make myself sit through any of Oakbridge’s lectures.”

“A squire’s not just a year’s investment. What about after the Progress, when you can go tearing off after bandits and monsters again? You can’t neglect the girl just because you don’t need to keep up with proper bows and greetings.”

“She’s more than proved her worth as a warrior, and she’s already fought with the Own. I suspect she’ll be able to keep up,” Raoul replied, his big voice dry. “Between tracking spidrens and fighting bandits, she’s seen more action than _we_ ever did as pages. I can’t imagine she’ll get in the way.”

“If you’re so certain she’ll be nothing but a benefit, why ask me for advice?” Alanna asked.

“I’m not here for advice,” Raoul admitted bluntly, “I’m here for permission.”

“ _Permission?”_

Alanna sounded as startled as her eavesdropping children, who exchanged a quick, bewildered glance before they pressed their pale heads to the door once more.

“Don’t be dense,” Raoul retorted. “As if I’d ever try and lay claim to the girl—the _first girl—_ if you wanted her! It doesn’t matter _how_ useful a squire she’d be, or how much I want her for myself, you have the right to ask her first.” When their mother said nothing, Raoul continued: “I know you’ve never had a squire before, but I wasn’t about to assume that you didn’t want one— _this_ one—now. I wouldn’t dare.”

When Alanna did speak, there was amusement in her tone, but no softness. “You know very well I’m not allowed to go anywhere near that girl. You just said as much, and why, yourself.”

Rustling cloth sounded like broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Sure,” Raoul admitted easily, “of course. All of Corus, and half the countryside, know why you’re in such a rage with Jon. And,” he added quickly, no doubt at the warning sign of their mother’s eyes flashing violet sparks, “you’ve every right to be, of course. What he did was low, and there’s no denying that, no matter how little choice he had in the matter. _But_ ,” Raoul continued with humor dancing through his words, “we both know that you’re not above disobeying an order from time to time when you know you’re in the right of it. I wasn’t going to presume that you weren’t going to disobey _this_ one.”

“No,” Alanna said, her voice heavy with disgust, “I can’t, because Jon also has a point, curse his eyes: if I _do_ go near Keladry, every conservative in the country will say that I witched her, that she didn’t earn her shield squarely.”

Raoul made an exceptionally rude noise, and their mother gave a short, bitter bark of laughter, doubtless at the accompanying gesture that the twins couldn’t see through the heavy wooden door.

“Well,” Raoul said after a moment, his good humor apparently already returned, “that’s good news for me, at least. If you can’t make her your squire, there’s nobody to stop me taking her—unless she’s already been snatched-up by some other enterprising fellow. Those ogres couldn’t have picked a worse time. If I’ve lost my chance I’ll go back and flay them all, ogres and soldiers alike. I swear, you should see the way the border guards get their jewels bunched in their knickers when—”

Alan and Aly were not to find out what Raoul and the Own had been forced to endure from the border guards at Tusaine, because at that moment strong fingers fastened around the ears that were not pressed against the door, and their father pulled them up to their feet. Alan flushed dark red, and even Aly blushed a little, although she met their father’s eyes squarely while Alan tried to dodge his gaze as best he could with George’s grip on his ear holding him in place.

Their father raised a single, crooked eyebrow at his children. He didn’t speak, though, or open the door and march them in to apologize to Alanna and Raoul. He dropped their ears, dusted his hands off, and planted them on his hips. Alan and Aly slunk away, Alan thoroughly cowed, and Aly at least subdued by getting caught even if she wasn’t embarrassed about eavesdropping the way her brother was.

George waited until they turned the corner of the hallway before he let himself grin.

 

With Alanna now assured that Keladry of Mindelan would have a knight to squire for—and a _good_ knight, at that—she relaxed. She wrote back to Duke Baird and agreed to meet with Nealan, and to offer to take him on as squire, if he wanted to work for her. Alanna had been paying a lot of attention to reports of this year’s crop of pages, even though she’d had to do it all by stories and reports; George’s man Stefan in particular had been very forthcoming, although he was hardly the only source Alanna had in the palace. Granted she had paid attention to Nealan and the others more because she wanted to know who Page Keladry was training with than out of any interest she had in the other boys in the particular, but all that attention meant that she knew a great deal about Nealan of Queenscove in passing, and he seemed promising enough, for all that Alanna had never had a squire before.

“And if I take one now,” she said to George, “maybe Keladry will understand that it’s not that I don’t _want_ to be her knight-master, but just that I _can’t_. I’m already promised to someone else.”

“Or maybe she’ll be that much more disappointed that you’re teachin’ someone else, when ye’ve never had a squire before,” George pointed out, just to be contrary. When Alanna looked torn between throwing something heavy at him and sitting down to cry, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and quickly said, “Ah, lass, I’m only pesterin’ ye. The lass’ll have figured out how ye feel by now, surely. The whole kingdom’s talkin’ about how angry ye are with Jon. If the girl’s got half the brains she seems, she’ll have sorted the story out by now—if no palace gossips have let the whole thing slip to the pages, anyway.”

A kiss on the forehead did little to cheer Alanna up, but she was determined to help Duke Baird—and if she could subtly interrogate Nealan of Queenscove about the girl he had sponsored as a page in the process, well, so much the better. It would be good to get a real first-hand account of Keladry of Mindelan from someone who knew her well. Alanna would just have to make sure that Nealan didn’t worry that Alanna had only sought him out for a squire to hear stories about Keladry—but given how busy the Lionness’s squire was bound to be, she didn’t think she’d have to worry much on that account. Especially if Nealan still liked to talk as much as he had the last time Alanna had met him. The boy was a born story-teller, or a scholar. Alanna suspected that it would take very little prompting to get Nealan to tell her all about his training with the first known female page in a century.

With their mother distracted over the prospect of a squire, and tales of Keladry of Mindelan, Alan and Aly found themselves off-the-hook as far as their own potential knighthood was concerned. Alanna asked them about it only once more, when she set out that evening for Corus with the Own to meet Nealan of Queenscove. The twins declined to accompany her and, being in a hurry, Alanna did not delay to question their motives farther.

Alan thought about writing a thank-you note to Duke Baird, but decided that it probably wouldn’t be taken in quite the right spirit. He kept his thoughts—and his gratitude—to himself.

He also kept training—just in case.

 

**March of 458 H.E., Pirate’s Swoop**

Alan had been quiet ever since news reached Pirate’s Swoop that the Chamber of the Ordeal had disgorged a corpse and a rapist from this year’s crop of squires. For once, his sister didn’t pester him for his thoughts. She knew what he was fretting over, and since she didn’t have any answers, she let him fret in peace. Their mother left soon after the holidays with the Royal Progress—not having entirely forgiven King Jonathan yet, but willing to do her duty to the realm and treat her liege civilly—especially now that Wyldon of Cavall had resigned as training master. That was something else that Alan was fretting over, but once again Aly had no answers for him beyond, “It means things at the palace have changed. Have you?” which really only gave him more questions to ponder.

When their father came back from helping Bay Cove through an earthquake with aide from the Third Company of the King’s Own—led by Uncle Raoul and his new squire—Alan was silent while his sister pelted George with questions about both the disaster and about Squire Keladry.

“I really didn’t have much to do with her, lass,” George finally said, “but she seemed a hard worker, and a polite creature, even if she didn’t do much talkin’ leastwise not where I could see it. Ye’ll have to find some other source to sate your curiosity. If ye’re that interested, ye could always ask your mother—or write to Prince Roald. They trained together, ye recall. Surely he’ll have stories. Those who were pages together always do,” he said, chuckling at the stories that Alanna’s fellows liked to tell over campfires and friendly hearths.

Aly grumbled and let the subject drop. Alan’s thoughts were not so easily dismissed.

“Da?” he asked a few days later, scuffing his toes on the flagstone floor nervously; a habit he had outgrown years before. “Can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course, youngster,” George said, putting aside a pile of encoded reports from the Scanran border. “What’s on your mind, m’lad?”

“Knighthood,” Alan said bluntly.

“Ah,” said George. He gestured to the seat across from his desk, and Alan walked into the room and settled himself on the cushions. He didn’t say anything else, but waited patiently for his son to work up the nerve to share more words.

“I think...I think maybe I want to be a knight,” Alan confessed. When his father only nodded soberly, he was forced to continue, explaining himself: “But I don’t think I can be the sort of knight that ma is. I don’t think I’ll be...legendary. So does that mean I’m destined to be a disappointment?”

“No,” George said immediately. “Ye’re destined to be _you_. Nobody wants ye to be your mother—least of all her. We want to see ye make your own place in the world, and if that’s behind a shield, so be it. But I doubt the Goddess’ll be meddlin’ in your affairs,” George said bluntly, “nor are ye likely to face the sort of threats that your mother did when her shield was freshly painted—gods all forfend, anyway! There’s enough threats these days without kingom-shatterin’ things like mad sorcerer’s covetin’ the throne and comin’ back from the dead. With any luck, ye’ll be able to just be a _knight_ , and not have anything to do with mad legends and portents. I’m not sayin’ there’s any way to be _sure_ ye won’t, but between our neighbors and our new immortal citizens, we’ve got quite enough to worry about. Ye’ll have plenty of chances to prove yourself a worthy knight, and plenty of dangers to try and live through, without needin’ to bring out the sort of nonsense your mother faced.” He spat on the floor for luck, and to banish any fates he had tempted with his words.

Alan nodded soberly. “So ma won’t be upset if all I do is...well, _regular_ deeds?”

“Your ma will only be upset if ye do something untrue to yourself, and dishonorable,” George said firmly. “Same with me—unless there’s a very good reason to besmirch that honor,” he added with a wink.

Alan was reasonably sure he was joking. Mostly.

He decided to change the subject to his next question. “Will ma think I’m trying to upstage Keladry of Mindelan?”

“What nonsense is that, now?” George said mildly.

Alan shrugged. “It’s a fair question,” he insisted.

“’Tis not,” his father retorted. “Your ma wants ye to live _your_ life, not worry about that of some girl ye don’t even know. Squire Keladry can look after herself, and if not, she’s got the whole of the King’s Own to help her do it. Ye don’t need to worry about stealin’ glory from a girl that the whole realm’s already talkin’ about, anyway. Frankly I think Squire Keladry would be glad to be a bit upstaged, if it would take some of the attention away from her every breath. Far as I could tell from what I saw, the girl just wants to be a knight and do her work. I doubt she got into this just to turn the world on its ear, and even if she did—well, that’s already done, so ye making a name for yourself isn’t goin’ to do a thing to her.”

Alan slumped backwards a little in his seat, relieved. “Truly?” he asked.

“Truly,” George said. “And your ma might be a bit obsessed with Keladry of Mindelan, aye,” he continued, “but that doesn’t mean that _ye_ stopped bein’ her son. If it came to a choice between the second girl knight in a hundred years and her own flesh an’ blood, I’m not sayin’ it wouldn’t be a painful choice, but never doubt she’d pick ye.”

Alan smiled. He did doubt, a little, because his mother had always been a person who put duty above personal desires, but it was nice to hear his father say it.

“Now,” George said, as if sensing that his son’s worries had settled to a more reasonable level, “unless ye mean to start near the end of the season—which _has_ been done, but I don’t recommend it—ye have nearly a year to worry the question in your mind before ye have to ride for Corus and start your trainin’ properly. Longer if ye aren’t ready then, even. If there’s no reason to rush a decision, don’t. Think on it, and any other questions that come up twixt now and then, don’t hesitate to ask me, or your ma, or your grandda, or anyone else ye think can help ye answer them. But now, I have to get this blessed pile translated so I can pass the news on to Myles tonight, so unless there’s somethin’ else pressin’ ye’d best run along and pester your sister, all right?”

“All right, da. Thank you,” said Alan. He hesitated, then came around his father’s desk to give him a quick, sheepish hug. George ruffled his hair, then let his son flee the room. He shook his head over high-strung youngsters and turned his attention to the complicated code before him. In some ways, code-breaking was a lot like being a father, except that with codes you _knew_ when you’d finally gotten it right.

With children, you were stuck with your best guess. George hoped he’d guessed right for Alan’s sake, but knew he’d have to wait months—possibly years—before he could even begin to know for sure.

Being a spy, even a spymaster, was a lot simpler.

 

In the end it was Scanra that finally made up Alan’s mind for him. He waved his mother off to battle, as he had done so many times before, but this time it was different; this time he felt _guilty_ for staying behind. Boys and girls not much older than him were going to the fight as well, as members of the Queen’s Riders or as squires to their knights. The King’s Own had Squire Keladry with them and if Alan had started his page training at ten, he would be on the brink of squiredom himself and preparing to follow them all soon enough. As it was, he could do nothing but wave and wait and worry.

He told his father first; he was sure that Aly already knew from the way she had looked at him as they stood on the wall after their mother rode out of sight. Some things didn’t have to be talked about, not between the two of them anyway. “Da?” Alan asked that afternoon as George, face drawn despite his determinedly-cheerful whistling, sorted coded papers. “Da, I want to go to Corus in the fall. I want to train as a knight.”

George looked up, his eyebrows raised. He studied his son. Alan fisted his hands at his sides and did not fidget. “You’re sure?” was all his father asked.

Alan nodded.

“All right,” said George. He bent back to his work.

Alan hesitated a moment then said, “And da?”

“Hmm?”

“Can you—can you not tell ma? Not yet?”

“As you like.” George sounded bemused.

“Thanks, da.” Alan fled.

His shoulders felt light, as if he’d discharged a heavy burden he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying.

 

**April of 459 H.E., near Tortall’s Northern Border:**

Alanna turned the letter over in her hands as if she could use the empty side of the paper as a scrying tool, and pry answers from it. If her famous temper had been as _un_ tempered as it had been in her youth, she would have crumpled the whole thing up in frustration and tossed it into the brazier hanging from the center of her tent. As it was, she let out a growl loud enough to have her squire peeking in the open tent flap, his eyebrows raised in that annoyingly superior expression he wore when he thought she was being immature.

She graced Nealan with an arched eyebrow of her own, and he quickly ducked out of sight again.

“Wait—Neal,” Alanna called, “come back. I want to talk to you.”

Nealan edged back inside the tent, looking wary. “How may this lowly creature be of assistance, oh Glorious Knight-Mistress?” he asked politely.

Alanna snorted at him. “Don’t start that nonsense again,” she said, voice tart. “Sit down. Pour yourself a drink first if you want,” she said, waving at the pitcher of fruit juice that sat on a nearby folding table. “I’ve got a question for you.”

Neal did as he was bid, then settled himself on a camp stool near the cot Alanna was sitting on. She kept absently folding and re-folding the letter from her husband, hardly noticing what she was doing. Her thoughts were all fixed on the contents of George’s letter, but the paper itself had slipped from her mind to be worried mercilessly by her fingers. If Nealan thought her restlessness over a bit of paper was curious, he at least had learned enough to not comment on that.

“Ask away,” Neal said pertly, quaffing a swallow of juice. Like many mages, Alanna was not much fond of spirits; Nealan deeply regretted that he suffered from the same trait, and would have to be forced to admit that having a knight-master who preferred fruit juice to wine was highly convenient.

“Why did you decide to be a knight?”

Neal choked on his drink, and came up sputtering. “Wh-what?” he asked, coughing.

Alanna watched him with a crooked smile on her face. “You were well on your way to becoming a healer like your father, a _proper_ healer with a university education and real book-learning. From what I’ve been able to teach you of the odds and ends I’ve picked up in my years of periodic study, it seems you might be a very good one someday, if you can devote the proper time to learning the art. Why give that up to learn how to get your head bashed in by barbarians like me?”

“Queenscove has always had a knight in service to the realm,” Neal answered firmly.

“You have siblings,” Alanna pointed out.

“Younger siblings,” Neal said shortly. “Who may or may not have any interest in earning a shield. My older brothers are—are dead.” His voice faltered for only a moment. “They were good knights, honorable knights, but their service is over. My father won’t be around forever,” he continued bluntly. “Someone has to carry the shield.”

He met her violet eyes fiercely with his green ones, daring her to argue or show pity.

Instead Alanna nodded, accepting his words without comment or censure. She had gone for her shield because she craved adventure, but she had quickly learned duty, and respected it greatly. She would never berate Neal for his choice.

They sat in silence for a while—something neither of them were much accustomed to. Neal finished his juice and picked at a loose thread in the hem of his sleeve. Alanna ran her fingers along the creases in her letter, wearing the paper ragged with her fidgeting.

Abruptly she stood, shoving the letter unceremoniously into her belt. “I’m going for a ride,” she announced.

Neal stood as well and bowed. “I’ll saddle Darkmoon,” he said, for once without any extra comments.

Alanna nodded and her squire ran out of the tent. She remained where she had stood, deep in thought, her violet eyes dark. The words of her husband’s letter continued to run through her mind:

> _Alan’s decided to enter page training. He doesn’t want me telling you ahead of time, so don’t let on that you know. I’ll take him to Corus in the fall, and make sure that he’s properly outfitted. Before you squawk, remember how many years I’ve been living with the realm’s loveliest knight. I know how to see to a page’s gear, love. And come midwinter you’ll be at the palace yourself, and you can re-do everything to your satisfaction. But leave the lad be for the moment. He won’t say why he doesn’t want you told, but I suspect he’s afraid that he’ll change his mind at the last minute and doesn’t want you disappointed if he does. I don’t think he will, though. He’s spent the last seven months making up his mind, and hasn’t changed it once. You’ve got a knight-to-be in the family at last._
> 
> _I’ll have Stefan watching over him, and the rest of my palace people. If there’s aught amiss, I’ll doubtless know sooner than the lad himself. There will be no need to fret, though I know that won’t stop either of us._
> 
> _The children don’t know I’m writing to you so they can’t send their love, but I know they would if they did. In lieu of that, have all of mine._
> 
> _~George_

Alanna shook herself from her stupor and grabbed a pair of sturdy gloves. She slapped them in her palm as she strode out of the tent, calling, “You’d best not be dawdling, squire! I’d like to be back in time for dinner, and sooner gone, sooner returned. If you’ve gotten distracted flirting, I’ll give you something to pay attention to instead of pretty girls who’ve got better things to do than listen to you natter at them...”

 


	2. The Sponsors

**September of 459 H.E., Royal Palace of Corus**

Padraig haMinch was an imposing figure, for all that he was thin and only a few inches taller than was average for a well-fed and well-bred noble. He was dressed in plain but costly clothes: a deep green tunic, brown shirt, and dark green hose. His dark red hair was neatly combed back into a thick horsetail and his beard was cropped short around a narrow chin. His nose was long and sharp, giving his face a hawkish expression. His mouth was thin and his brows thick and his narrow brown eyes had a very strong glare.

Alan of Pirate’s Swoop bit his lip and tried hard not to fidget under the Training Master’s silent scrutiny.

“Most pages start their training at ten or eleven,” Padraig said at last, his rough voice devoid of emotional inflection.

“And some start much older than that,” George Cooper said, with an easy shrug and a mild smile. He stood slouched against the wall behind him casually, as though he were here chatting with a good friend rather than with a man who thought his wife was unnatural and that he was nothing more than a jumped-up commoner. George would have been the first to admit that he _was_ a jumped-up commoner, and his wife far from an ordinary woman, and besides that he liked tweaking the tail of stiff, stern nobility like Padraig haMinch. He was only refraining now for the sake of his son; he knew that the Training Master had no reason to like Alan and didn’t want to make the next four years of his son’s life any harder than they would be already.

All Padriag said in response to George’s mild words was, “humph.”

“I don’t expect special treatment on account of being older,” Alan said quietly, meeting the Training Master’s harsh gaze as firmly as he could. The Lionness’s son said nothing about the _other_ reasons why he might expect special treatment; he had a feeling that he was going to get plenty of that, and very little to his liking. “I’m just another first-year page, and I’ll study with them just like anyone else.”

Padraig’s hawkish expression gave nothing away. “That you will, boy,” he said.

Alan gulped.

“Very well,” Padraig said, rising from his seat behind the heavy oak desk that seemed to take up more of the small office than it had any right to. “I have other trainees to greet, and no more time to waste on you. No doubt your— _mother_ has explained how things are done here,” he said, the burr in his voice catching on the unwelcome word.

Alan nodded, then realized he ought to answer his Training Master aloud, and said politely, “Yes, sir.”

“Well, things have changed since _her_ day.” Alan wondered if he was imagining the emphasis that Padraig put on the seemingly innocuous syllable. “Doubtless your sponsor will explain the details of your service in depth. Be waiting in the hallway when the supper bell rings. We’ll try and find sponsors for...all of you.” The sour expression on Padraig’s harsh face made Alan wonder who else had come to enter page training this year; he was probably grasping at straws, but it seemed to him that he was actually _not_ the Training Master’s most-unwelcome page.

“You may use the chamber across the hall for any farewells you wish to make,” Padraig said curtly, his eyes flicking to George with an expression very much like distaste in their hooded brown depths. “A servant will come to escort the boy to his assigned room when they are ready for him.”

“Thank you, sir,” Alan said, bowing politely.

George gave a wicked grin, but bowed as well, not very deeply.

At Padraig’s dismissive nod, father and son backed out of the room.

 

“Ye’re sure about this, lad?” George asked, the first time he had questioned Alan since the boy had made his final decision to ride to Corus. Alan gulped, then nodded. “All right,” George said, and caught his son in a hug. “Ye change your mind at any point, or need help with anything or any _one_ , ye go to Stefan in the stables, all right? He’ll know how to get in touch with me faster than a letter.”

“Faster than grandda?” Alan asked, arching an eyebrow.

“If it’s a problem ye want to confess to yer grandda, or one you think he can help you solve, by all means talk to Myles,” George said mildly. “But if ye need to talk to me _direct_ , for any reason, ye can use Stefan.”

“I can’t imagine what sort of trouble I could possibly get into that I can’t admit to grandda,” Alan said.

“Nor can I,” replied George, “but I like to plan for what I _can’t_ imagine.”

“All right, da,” Alan said, smiling a little, “I’ll go to Stefan if I need to.”

“Good lad,” George said, and ruffled his son’s fair hair. “You remember what your ma and I taught you, and you’ll do all right.” He gave Alan another quick hug, then released him when a sharp knock at the chamber door indicated that the promised servant had arrived to take Alan away to his new life.

Alan gulped, managed a shaky smile for his father, and threw his chin back as bravely as he could manage.

George did his best to keep the crooked grin on his face, and not let on how terribly proud—and worried—he was for his youngest son.

“My name is Salma. If you’re all finished in here, follow me...”

 

Alan meekly followed the short, frizzy-haired servant down the hallway. He had been to the palace before, but not in several years, and he had never come to the wing where pages and squires lived and trained. He was sure to get lost more than once before he learned his way around and the idea distressed him. Alan hated being lost.

He did his best not to fret, knowing that most of the other new pages would be in an even worse state than he was, since many of them would be totally new to palace life. At the least he would not be the only one to take a few wrong turns, he told himself, but found the thought offered little consolation. Being “no worse than” his fellow pages would not be good enough for any boy of thirteen; as the son of the Lionness, Alan had even more to prove than most older pages.

Salma pointed out her room, then directed Alan to his own. It was near the end of the hall, past several other doors that all had a piece of slate like Salma’s had, the name of the occupant written in chalk on the slate. Alan frowned at himself when they stopped outside his room, wishing that he had paid more attention to the names of his fellow pages as he passed their rooms; he might as well start learning who he would be sharing the next four years of his life with now.

Alan thanked Salma politely then turned to survey his new room as she bustled off, no doubt to fetch the next trainee. Alan thought about leaving his door open so that he could watch the other newcomers, but decided that it wouldn’t be very kind; he would not have enjoyed being on display to curious pages for his journey down that hallway and he doubted his fellow pages would like having him gawking at them either. With a sigh Alan shut the door and began checking his room and furnishings.

He wasn’t inspecting it for the level of comfort offered—simple, but nothing to complain about—but rather to see if there was anything beyond the ordinary in his room. Alan was not the prodigy at spycraft that his sister was, but he had been raised at George Cooper’s knee as well, and he knew better than to take a room at face-value. He would have preferred to pick out his own quarters at random from those allotted to the new pages; there would have been less of a chance for interested parties to attach listening spells or unwelcome gifts to his room if they couldn’t have been sure which he would end up with. Since his name had probably been chalked on that door for hours, Alan would just have to be thorough in his inspection. Fortunately he had both his father’s training and his own Gift to help him.

Alan didn’t have much Gift, but he did have the Sight like his da, only stronger; magic ran heavy in his mother’s line and the strength of Alan’s sight, like his sister’s, came from Alanna. Alan could identify a person’s magic at a glance, could recognize gods and lies, discern poison in water and food or illness in people, and it also helped him to see things clearly at great distance, or—most usefully in this case—very small things up close, things that most people wouldn’t notice even if they tried. Alan used his Sight and his training to check his room for listening spells and booby-traps, or any less obvious signs of tampering. It took quite a while, but eventually he was satisfied that his room was empty of everything but furniture.

There was only one window but Alan liked the look of it: there were two sets of shutters, small ones that could be opened up high to let in light and air and larger ones beneath. The ledge of the window was wide enough to sit on, but more importantly to Alan, the lower shutters were wide enough to admit a good-sized person. That gave his room a second exit, and the realization of that made the small knot of tension between his shoulders ease somewhat. He checked the locks on the shutters carefully, though. An exit could also be an entrance, and Alan didn’t want to have someone else using the window to climb in. He wondered if he should talk to Stefan about getting the lock on the shutters changed discreetly, then decided he was being paranoid. Alan shook his head and turned to inspect the rest of the room.

There was a narrow bed, two chairs, two small tables, a clothespress and bookcase, and a heavy desk. Everything was well-made but simple, and looked like it had seen many years of use but was still hearty and whole. Alan nodded; that fit with what he had expected to find in the pages’ wing. The realm didn’t want to waste money on fripperies for their young students, but stinting their pages was no way to build good knights. The second room was smaller and bare of luxuries like rugs and extra furnishing, holding nothing more than the bare essentials for washing up: basin, mirror, and privy tucked behind a narrow door in the wall. There was a bar for laying clothes out on for airing, since this would serve as dressing room as well as privy, and if Alan had brought a servant he supposed that this is where he—or she—would be expected to sleep. Alan made a face and walked back into the main room.

His packs had been placed by the foot of his bed and appeared to be untampered with. Alan opened heavy drapes and shutters to let more light in and checked the special compartments his father had made sure his gear contained, but they—and what they held—were intact, too. Alan was almost disappointed, and laughed at himself when he realized that.

“Dolt,” he muttered aloud, “do you _want_ to have people spying on you? You’re just a page, and they’re treating you that way. Relax. That’s what you want, anyway.”

Shaking his head at his own folly, Alan finally got to the business of unpacking.

He finished just in time to change for supper—not into a proper page’s uniform, because he hadn’t been issued one of those yet, but out of his dusty travel-stained clothes and into something neat, if folded from its journey—and was just smoothing his dark blue tunic out as best he could when the supper bell rang thrice. Hurriedly patting down his ruddy blonde hair—now cropped short to the bottom of his ears—Alan slipped out into the hallway.

Entering quietly in dark clothes, Alan went unnoticed for a moment in the bustle of everyone rushing out of their rooms. The others near him—other new pages, Alan assumed—were all standing neatly in front of their doors, so Alan did the same. His eyes flicked sideways at the sound of chatter, and Alan watched as Padraig haMinch led a crowd of boys down the hall. Other boys stepped away from their doors to join the parade, all the older pages no doubt. Alan studied them quietly, careful to keep his expression unfocused and polite so that it wouldn’t look like he was staring at anyone in particular.

Padriag haMinch looked no more pleased than he had that afternoon in his office; if anything, the hawkish harshness of his features was more pronounced than it had been before, and his frown deeper. Alan fought the urge to gulp and duck his head. Rather than fret about his Training Master’s ill-humor, Alan turned his attention to the boys behind him. They were a mixed lot ranging widely in color, hair, and build, and in age from eleven to perhaps sixteen; Alan was not the only person who had started his page training late then. One of the boys—a short fellow with the brown skin and regal features of a Bazhir—caught Alan looking and smiled, his dark eyes twinkling with amusement. Alan couldn’t help but smile back despite his nerves.

When Padraig reached the first of the new pages he stopped so sharply that the solid heels of his leather boots clicked together. Given the fact that none of the boys following him fell over their own feet, Alan surmised that the Training Master was always crisp in his movements, and resolved to stay on his toes so as not to get caught napping.

“Your name,” Padriag said, his rough voice ringing out clearly in the silent hallway. His hands were clasped stiffly behind his back but his piercing gaze made clear exactly which boy he was talking to.

A skinny, round-faced boy a little shorter than Alan gulped, then said loudly, “Fenneck of Groten, my lord.” He threw back his head, and Alan saw that there was a stubborn chin hidden in the baby-fat that still softened the features of the brown-haired ten-year-old under inspection. From the faint brownish cast of his skin, Alan guessed at a distant hint of Bazhir ancestry in Fenneck of Groten, but he could have just been the sort who tanned easily and spent a lot of time in the sun. Certainly the sun-streaks in his curly hair indicated an outdoorsy nature.

“Who will sponsor Fenneck of Groten?” Padriag asked.

At once two hands went up in the crowd of boys behind him. The two volunteers gave one another identical glares. Alan quickly determined that it was more than just their frowns that matched; the boys were so alike that even with his Sight, Alan could hardly tell them apart. They both had fair skin marred by sunburn, brown hair with the same soft curls and light sunstreaks as Fenneck, and sharp blue eyes. They also shared upturned noses and mulish chins and, right now, flat eyebrows drawn in scowls.

Padraig cleared his throat impatiently. There was a whispered discussion of only a few seconds, then the boy on the right put his hand down. “I will, my lord,” he said, his voice deeper than Alan expected. He revised his estimate of the twins’—for they had to be twins—ages to be fourteen, older than himself, rather than the twelve that their height had first suggested.

“Polluck of Groten,” the Training Master said, “very well. He is yours to sponsor.”

The next boy to catch Padraig haMinch’s eye was a solid, round fellow with ruddy skin, dark hair, and big blue eyes. A button nose protruded from his chubby cheeks and his front teeth, Alan saw when the boy opened his mouth to speak, had a gap between them that would have easily fit a whole lockpick. His voice was squeaky with nerves and sweat already beaded at his temples and at the sleeves of his tunic, making Alan feel better about his own uneasiness. He gave his name as Nomlan of Payset and was sponsored after a moment’s hesitation by Hallec of Nenan. Hallec was a tall boy of twelve or thirteen with broad arms, knobby knees, and untidy brown hair. His tan features were darkened further by a deep smattering of freckles, but his brown eyes were bright and alert beneath their heavy brows.

After Nomlan came Vinlet of Tirragen, a bronze-skinned boy with delicate features that were belied by fierce green eyes. His black hair was cropped close to his head in tight curls and his hands curled into fists when the Training Master turned to him. He looked like a natural-born fighter and probably, if Alan was any guess, a short-tempered one. Alan made a note to stay on the short boy’s good side. He was sponsored after some hesitation by Allet of Fenrigh, a dour-looking fellow with a fuzzy cloud of straw-blonde hair and dreamy hazel eyes under heavy lids. He had gangly limbs and wrists that already protruded from the ends of his sleeves, as if he grew too fast for his clothes to keep up. His height bore that supposition out; Allet was already the tallest page in the hallway. His wan expression was livened up with a smattering of freckles across his long nose, and by the crooked grin he gave his assigned page after the Training Master turned away.

Alan was next in line. The moment Lord Padraig’s glare fastened on him, Alan clasped his hands together neatly and spoke in a clear voice: “Alan of Pirate’s Swoop.” He stared straight ahead, doing his best to look serene and unconcerned. He wondered suddenly if all of his fellow pages would know who he was from his title; his mother was so rarely referred to as anything other than _the Lionness_ , after all, and his father was only famous to those who shared his shadowy world and there, he was not called Baron of Pirate’s Swoop, but rather The Whisper Man. Alan chewed his lip, worried. He would hate to have someone volunteer to sponsor him without knowing exactly what they were getting into, but at the same time he could hardly announce his maternal parentage without it seeming like he was trying to brag about his famous mother...

He didn’t have long to fret. “I will sponsor him,” a boy in the back of the group announced.

Alan tilted his head to get a look at the speaker. He could tell nothing from the other boy’s tone of voice—calm, soft, and neutral—but his appearance was much more distinctive: fair-skinned with white-blonde hair, blue eyes, and delicate features offset by a stubborn mouth that was oddly juxtaposed by narrow, hunching shoulders. Alan was not the only one to stare curiously; Padraig himself had turned around to gape at the speaker.

“ _You_ , Roget?”

The boy’s bright blue eyes flickered, but Alan couldn’t blame him; meeting the Training Master’s gaze head-on took more than just gumption. “Yes, sir,” Roget said, his whispery voice making Alan think about wind sliding over harsh rock faces. “For my part, I hold no grudges, and I would like to make it clear that there is no hard feeling between Stone Mountain and Pirate’s Swoop—at least, not as far as I am concerned.”

Alan’s mind raced. His parents both had more than their fair share of enemies of course, but he could not think why a boy of Stone Mountain should be particularly concerned about enmity between himself and Alan’s family—but then he remembered. The squire who had died in the Chamber of the Ordeal two years ago had been named Joren of Stone Mountain. Alan frowned, wondering what  _his_ family could possibly have had to do with that—but of course, he realized, Keladry of Mindelan. Nasty rumors had placed the blame for Joren’s death at the feet of the female squire he had trained with, and whose maid he had once kidnapped in a dishonorable plot to get Keladry disqualified from page training. Since Alan’s mother was the only  _other_ female currently involved in the Knightly Arts, Roget apparently thought that he and Alan would be enemies and was trying to pre-empt that...or was lying, and meant to undermine Alan in a sort of twisted revenge.

Alan licked his lips, trying to think of a way to extricate himself from the tricky situation without giving offense. Before he could come up with anything another voice spoke up, this one low and musical:

“Begging the Training Master’s pardon, and that of my friend Roget, but I would like to offer myself as a sponsor for Alan of Pirate’s Swoop instead. We are, after all, kinsmen, and I feel it is my duty to look after him. I am sure that Roget of Stone Mountain understands the bond of family that compels me to set myself against him in this matter.”

The speaker bowed. When he stood up again, Alan recognized the bright-eyed Bazhir who had smiled at him.

“Kinsmen?” Padriag repeated dubiously.

“On the side of his mother,” the Bazhir boy said smoothly.

Alan nearly laughed. Certainly he grinned, and raised an eyebrow at the other boy. “You are of the Bloody Hawk tribe?” he asked, managing to keep his voice level despite his amusement.

“My father is headman, Halef Seif, and my mother is our shaman.”

Alan bowed politely, then turned to the Training Master. “Sir,” he said, “while I thank Roget of Stone Mountain for his solicitude, and share his sentiments of equanimity, I would ask that in the name of kinship you grant me to the sponsorship of—”

“Koref Seif,” the Bloody Hawk boy supplied.

“Koref Seif,” Alan repeated.

Padraig glared at Alan with an unreadable expression on his harsh features, then cleared his throat roughly, and muttered, “Very well. In the face of such  _obvious_ kinship, Koref Seif will sponsor Alan Cooper.”

Alan bowed politely, then froze halfway up with a jerk. He blinked, pulling himself back to his feet, and stared at the Training Master in confusion. Padraig had already moved past Alan to the next door down the hallway. Alan stared speculatively at his green-clad back. Technically of course his name  _was_ Alan Cooper, as that was his father’s surname—but nobles did not have last names. They were known by their holdings. The only times Alan had ever been called “Cooper” were during the odd trips with his father, when they passed as ordinary commoners for one reason or another, usually simply because George wanted to educate his children in the ways of the world outside of palaces and parades.

He had no time to wonder why Padraig had chosen to call him “Cooper,” though; the next page took all of his attention the moment Alan turned to look at the door next to his, because the next page—well, she was clearly a  _she_ .

Alan managed not to gawp, but only barely. He raked his eyes across the girl, taking in her height and age—an inch or two taller than him, but closer in age to Alan than to the other trainee pages—and features: curly brown hair that was still long, and struggling to escape the pins that bound it to her head; brown eyes under heavy lids; plain but handsome features; strong shoulders and smooth olive skin. She was dressed in tunic and hose just like the rest of the boys, hers light blue over a white shirt. Her expression was fiercely set and Alan’s magically-enhanced eyesight let him see a tiny muscle jumping in the corner of her jaw from how tensely her teeth were clenched.

She had to swallow twice before she could speak, announcing herself at last in a ringing, clear voice as, “Fianola of Princehold. My lord.”

A long silence followed her words. Alan saw her settle her feet more firmly on the flagstones, as if bracing for a fight. When the training master spoke, his voice was utterly toneless: “And who will sponsor Fianola of Princehold?”

More silence followed, broken by a deep breath and a tremulous, “My lord, I will.”

Every eye turned toward the speaker, including Fianola’s and Alan’s.

A tall, sturdy boy with straight brown hair and lightly-tanned skin stood squaring his shoulders in the middle of the crowd of older pages. His features were even plainer than Fianola’s, and a delicate nose was countered by a very firm chin. The way his hazel eyes kept blinking rapidly betrayed the nerves that he otherwise managed to hide.

“Lachren of Mindelan,” Padraig said, his voice even more toneless than before. “Of course.”

Alan couldn’t keep a crooked smirk off of his face. This fellow—he looked to be about twelve, in his second year of training most likely—was related somehow to the infamous Keladry. No wonder he was willing to sponsor a female page. If he didn’t, he would probably face a grumpy homecoming at some point when Squire Keladry found out.

“My lord,” Lachren said politely, “may I stand for sponsor, then?”

Padraig chewed on the inside of his lip, then nodded curtly. “Very well,” he barked, and turned to the next page—also a girl, Alan saw with shock, one who looked very much like a smaller version of Fianola. Her features were somewhat prettier, or daintier at least, which was not necessarily a good thing in a girl who wanted to be a knight—but her expression was even fiercer than Fianola’s, and her bright eyes positively glittered.

“Teodorie of Princehold!” she announced loudly, her voice ringing. The girl looked like she expected to have to fight and was more than ready to do so. Alan couldn’t help but grin at the fire in her brown eyes; she looked like she’d have fit in well with the odd assortment of family and friends he’d grown up with. Her hair was even less-restrained than her sister’s but just as long and curly and she too was dressed in plain tunic and hose, hers a dark brown that would hide stains. Alan had the feeling that Teodorie was the sort of person who was hard on her clothes.

While Alan had been eyeing her so had the rest of the pages, but none of them moved to sponsor her. As the silence grew, Teodorie’s cheeks darkened but her eyes stayed bright. She glared at the staring pages, as if daring them to speak. There was a rustling sound as several people shifted uncomfortably but no one opened their mouth. Alan chewed the inside of his lip, wishing suddenly that he had started his page training when he had been ten, like most boys did. He knew it would have made his mother proud if he had been able to sponsor one of the girls who wanted to earn her shield.

The Training Master was just opening his mouth to demand a sponsor when one stepped forward: A tall, hard-featured boy with darker skin than Koref, but with the same regal desert air that identified him as a Bazhir. He wore his black hair swept back in a tight ponytail. Alan didn’t consider himself in expert in what girls fancied, but he figured this fellow for the most handsome of the pages standing here. He had a small, polite smile, and bowed only a little when Padraig turned to look at him. “I volunteer to sponsor the younger daughter of Princehold,” he said. His voice was musical, rich, and devoid of any emotion that Alan could detect. The boy seemed the very epitome of politeness and, from the fact that he had chosen to sponsor a girl, Alan assumed he was as honorable as he was mannerly. He was ready to like the boy for putting duty to the realm above personal feelings, but he noticed that the expression on Koref’s cheerful face was troubled.

Padraig’s face was easier to read: he practically radiated displeasure. Was that because he was one of those Tortallans who disliked their Bazhir neighbors, or did he just dislike girls learning to fight? Alan knew that if his sister had been here she would have gone to the Training Master’s office right after lights-out and snooped until she had answers. Alan decided he would wait and see what happened during training, and judge Padraig’s feelings that way.

This time he didn’t hesitate as he had for Lachren. “Qarat Merhent, sponsor for Teodorie of Princehold. Very well. Next?”

The last page in line, Alan realized with a dull shock, was also a girl—or if she wasn’t, then she was the prettiest boy he had ever seen. Shorter than Teodorie, the child at the end of the hallway was dwarfed by a thick head of golden curls. Like the other two girls, she wore a tunic and hose, although hers were burgundy and pink. Her blue eyes were large, her cheeks rosy, and her mouth already turned up in a bright smile. None of the other pages had dared to so much as smirk before their sponsors claimed them, but this pretty little creature beamed out at the world as if she had never seen anything so marvelous. It was infectious, making Alan want to either smile with her or go find somewhere private to vomit.

“Yvenne of Elden, if it please you, my lord!” the girl announced cheerfully, and grinned at the staring pages.

Padraig coughed into his hand, then said in a voice that reeked of doubt, “And who here will sponsor Yvenne of Elden?”

Rather than the silence that had met his question last time, now there were titters and muffled whispers, and the sounds of several feet shifting around. Clearly Alan’s fellow pages didn’t think much of this Yvenne of Elden. He had to admit that she didn’t seem like the sort of person to attempt page training, and even less like the sort of person who might pull it off, but Alan knew that being pretty didn’t mean a person couldn’t fight. _Just look at the queen_ , he silently told his new comrades. Thayet was accounted one of, if not _the_ , greatest beauties of Tortall, but she was also one of the realm’s fiercest fighters. There were plenty of pretty women who were warriors, and even some chipper, cheerful ones—Alan knew several personally, many of whom he could casually refer to as “aunts.” But of course, Alan knew that his upbringing was an uncommon one; he should not have been surprised to find his fellows judging Yvenne by her appearance and finding her wanting, although doubtless they would have been glad enough to dance with the girl.

“Well?” the Training Master demanded, his voice sharp with impatience. “Everyone must be sponsored.”

Silence stretched after his words. Yvenne of Elden did not appear disturbed; she continued to smile as she looked over the group of muttering, shuffling pages. It wasn’t the stiff, strained smile that Alan would have worn in such a circumstance; she genuinely looked cheerful. He wondered if she was touched in the head, or just more religious than was healthy. He couldn’t think of any other reason why a person could be so optimistic without good reason. Alan turned to study the older pages, most of whom were doing their best to avoid catching anyone else’s eyes. A stocky, red-haired boy with a crooked nose whispered something in Roget’s ear—Alan cursed himself for not looking quick enough to read his lips—and the pale boy blanched even further. When he raised his hand, he kept his eyes fixed on the floor. “My lord, I would like to sponsor Yvenne of Elden, please.”

Padraig raised an eyebrow. Alan grimaced, and saw the displeasure repeated on Koref’s face. The Training Master just said mildly, “Very well. With all of that finally sorted out, supper awaits.” He turned sharply on his heel and strode off down the hall, the pages scurrying after him.

Yvenne bounced right over to Roget with a cheerful greeting; he seemed unhappy, but forced a smile before leading her after Padraig.

“They make a pretty pair, at least.”

Alan turned toward the soft voice at his ear and saw Koref Seif standing at his shoulder. The shorter boy moved silently, and Alan was impressed. The amused twinkle was back in Koref’s eye, and so too had returned the crooked smirk as he bowed a greeting. Alan returned the gesture politely.

“Come,” Koref said cheerfully, “dinner waits, and we must not let it wait on us.”

Around them, the other new pages were hurrying to join their own sponsors with varying degrees of welcome. Alan watched as the two twins laughed and playfully shoved their kinsman to hurry Fenneck when he would have dawdled. Alan fell into step next to Koref. “How many years do you have?” he asked.

“I am in my second year of training as a page,” Koref replied, “if that is what you ask. Otherwise I lay claim to twelve years, if that was your question. I started late, because I was unsure what path I wished to follow. But not, I think, as late as you did,” he added with another crooked grin.

“You’re correct,” Alan said, answered the smile with one of his own. “I have thirteen years—an old man, by page standards, although not the oldest. My mother’s squire was fifteen when he started.”

“Well into his dotage, then,” Koref said, nodding along. “I will be surprised if such an elder can keep up with the Woman Who Rides Like a Man.”

Alan laughed. “I don’t think he’ll have a choice. Knowing ma, she’ll just tie him to her saddle and go on with poor Nealan bobbing over her horse’s withers.”

Koref laughed too, a friendly, musical sound. Some of the tension in Alan’s shoulders ebbed away. It seemed he had made a friend, or at least, had obtained a sponsor with a good sense of humor.

They followed the other pages into the dining hall. It was filled with boys and noise already, those squires who were not out with their knights not having needed to wait for sponsor-assignments before coming to dine. The long tables and benches were not as crowded as Alan had expected, but then, many knights were already on assignment at the Scanran border. Those boys who were here made up for the absence, filling the hall with talk and laughter, shouting greetings and insults. Alan followed Koref toward the serving line, helping himself to a solid tray on which he stacked his dishes, cutlery, and napkins. The food smelled good, and hot: a fresh roll, hearty potato soup to dip it in, generous slices of ham, and rice cooked with jasmine after the style of the Yamani Islands. Drinks, fruit, cheese, and honey already waited on the tables.

While Alan and the other pages collected their food, the talk in the hall slowly died-off. By the time he turned around to find a seat, a hush had fallen over the room, and every pair of eyes was staring at Alan—no, at the girls around him. Alan couldn’t hide a smirk. Seemingly the castle gossip-mill had failed for once, or doubtless those who had heard the news had thought it exaggerated, not believing that there could really be three girls in this year’s crop of pages. Whispers slowly threaded their way through the silence. Alan thought about trying to pick out individual speakers, but his belly rumbled, and he decided that he didn’t care enough to try.

He followed Koref to a table, and saw the other first years doing the same. Teodorie started to join her sister, then was scolded by her sponsor. She scowled and followed Qarat to a different table. When Roget and his red-headed friend led Yvenne over to join them, Teodorie brightened. Koref turned so smoothly that he might have been planning to head in that direction the whole time, and seated himself gracefully next to Lachren of Mindelan. Alan slid into the seat across from Fianola and greeted her with a smile. She stared back steadily without speaking. A tousle-haired boy already at their table edged so far away from Fianola that he almost landed in his neighbor’s lap. A brief shoving contest broke out, but when Padraig haMinci cleared his throat, everyone quieted immediately.

The Training Master was standing at a lectern in the front of the room. All the boys—and girls—rose to their feet as Padraig raised his hands in a traditional gesture of prayer. “Great Mithros, god of truth and of warriors, we offer thanks for this bounty, and ask your guidance in the coming season. Lead us in the path of virtue, and light our way with justice. May the god’s glory show us a stable path through these uncertain times. We ask this of Mithros, god of the sun.”

“So mote it be,” intoned all the pages, Alan among them.

Padraig dropped his hands and the pages thudded back into their seats. Alan regarded the Training Master thoughtfully for a moment, then turned to his meal. It had been a long journey to Corus, and his own uncertainty had meant that he and his father had only set out at the last minute, and had had to ride hard without the usual stops for visits along the way. He was hungry, and for a few moments he focused his attention on his food.

Alan was too much his parents’ son to focus _solely_ on one thing, though; he could not help but catch the whisper of conversation and the side-long looks that were directed at his table, and the one that held the two younger girls. After a few minutes of silent eating among their own small group, Koref turned to the brown-haired boy next to him and said casually, “So my friend, we have acquired unusual pages.”

Fianola visibly tensed. If they had been friends, Alan would have kicked her under the table for so obviously giving her worries away. Instead he made sure that his grip on his fork and knife remained loose and comfortable, as if he did not hear his sponsor’s words.

“There’s nothing wrong with being unusual,” Lachren muttered, but he did not sound very sure of himself.

“I did not say there was,” Koref replied calmly, “but still, most pages start their training at ten. You two delayed. Now you are both older than your sponsors, and that is unusual. I do hope you will not balk at taking instruction from those younger than you.”

Fianola’s shoulders drooped and she frowned, clearly confused at being called out for her age rather than her gender. Alan hid his smile in a thick bite of bread. It seemed his sponsor liked to tease. That was good, Alan was used to teasing. He would have been very homesick without it.

“I won’t balk,” Fianola said shortly, staring Koref down. When he met her glare with a bland smile, she dropped her eyes back to her food with a grimace.

“I take orders from people younger than me all the time,” Alan said cheerfully, once he had washed his food down with a long swallow of juice. “I have a twin sister who loves giving orders, and she’s at least ten minutes younger than I am.”

Koref laughed, Lachren grinned, and even Fianola managed a tiny smile.

“I am relieved,” said Koref. “Only think how it would shame me, if my page made a fool of himself by not listening to my wisdom. My friends would think that I had none to offer, and my renown would suffer.”

“I shall strive to not disgrace you,” Alan replied, bowing in his seat.

Koref bowed back. “That is all that one can ask, Alan of Pirate’s Swoop. Now, eat your rice before it cools.”

“Yes, Headman,” Alan replied in neat Barzun. His accent was not perfect, he knew, but Koref grinned, his dark eyes dancing.

“Why am I not surprised that the son of a commoner can speak sand-lice jabber,” complained a heavy-jawed boy at the next table.

Alan’s temper flashed, and he gripped it hard. Before he could muster up a scathing retort that wouldn’t have him scrubbing chamber pots for foul language, Koref turned to the speaker with hands upraised in polite denial. “No, no,” he said, “you have it wrong, my friend. Alan here surely learned his sand-lice jabber from his noble mother. She is the one who was adopted by my tribe, after all.” He shook his head mournfully. “I am saddened to discover that you know no more of recent history than you do of our ancient past. It seems that you will be forever laboring at punishment bells to make up for disappointing our training masters by your lack of wits. I had hoped that you might take the summer to learn to read some of the books your father keeps in his fine library, and perhaps improve your schooling in turn. Alas, that it is not so. My sympathies, my friend.”

By the time Koref finished, the other boy’s face was bright red, and Alan was smirking again. Koref turned back to his meal with a cheerful face while the offensive boy and his friends muttered together darkly.

“That was neatly done,” Fianola said, her eyes narrow and her voice neutral.

Koref shrugged. “When the winds carry farts to one’s ears, the best thing to do is blow much wind back to carry the smell away before it can distress one’s nose.”

Alan wasn’t the only one to snicker at his sponsor’s words.

Their laughter was cut short by the words of another page, a burly fourth-year fellow with messy curls and pockmarked cheeks. “And when the gods present us with unnatural things,” he announced darkly, “it’s a knight’s duty to route them out and put them to the sword, whether they’re monstrous Immortals or...something closer to home.”

“We can see what happens when that isn’t done properly,” the red-head with the crooked nose chimed in loudly. “One unnatural thing becomes two, becomes three...best to end them early, before they breed.”

There was a long, heavy silence, barely even broken by the sounds of the less sensitive pages continuing to stuff their faces. Alan glanced up at the high table where Padraig haMinch was eating his supper, but if the Training Master had heard the pages, he gave no sign.

Alan looked down at his food, thinking he ought to say something. Not even Koref had a smart answer this time, although his cheerful face was dour. Fianola’s cheeks were dark, whether with embarrassment or anger Alan couldn’t tell, but she said nothing, just picked at her food with her lips pressed into a thin line. Lachren looked more uncomfortable than the rest of them put together, and bolted his food without seeming to taste a single bite.

When they were dismissed from supper, the pages dispersed without the boisterous conversation that had marked the beginning of the meal. Alan and his year-mates attracted many whispers and side-long glances, especially the three from Princehold and Elden—and to a lesser extent, Alan himself.

_Three girls_ , Alan thought numbly. _Three girls in one year. What will the conservatives make of this, I wonder?_ Thinking about it, he couldn’t help but grin. His grin broadened when it occurred to him to speculate on what his mother would think of three girls trying for pages at the same time. Alan resolved to write to her tonight, and send the letter through his grandfather with all appropriate haste. Alanna would learn of the new pages sooner than Alan’s letter could reach her of course—gossip like that would travel faster than it could be carried by hand—but he knew she would enjoy hearing it from him all the same, no matter the delay.

It occurred to Alan that he was probably going to be writing a lot of letters to his mother—at least if the girls didn’t give up and go home right away. Alan swallowed hard, and hoped that at least one of them made it through to the end of their training. He knew his mother wouldn’t blame him if they didn’t, but he would still feel guilty. And she might blame him a little, wondering if he could have done more to help the girls win their shields. Alan sighed, and resolved himself to paying attention to more than just his own training. There was that sense of duty his parents had always warned him about, rearing its tedious head...

_Just don’t let me start hearing the gods’ voices, or wake up to find a magical cat waiting for me_ , Alan prayed, and crossed his fingers.  _Please_ . 

 


	3. Preparations

**September of 459 H.E., Royal Palace of Corus**

The next morning was the easiest start that they would get all year, Alan knew. It was the last day of rest before their training started in earnest, although for the pages it meant a day more devoted to chores and preparations than recreation or relaxation. He was pleased to discover that Koref’s good humor woke early; Alan wasn’t exactly a morning person by choice but once he was awake he was _awake_ and he often found it frustrating to wait for those who were slower to shake off sleep and join the new day. Koret was ready with a friendly greeting and a teasing comment about Alan’s messy hair—he wasn’t used to having his locks so short yet, and his attempt to comb them down had neglected the back of his head, which Koref had fixed for him after he’d finished joking about it—and Alan greeted him with a grin and a laugh in return.

Breakfast was a quieter affair, most of the pages apparently sharing neither Koref’s bright outlook on early mornings nor Alan’s binary state of total sleep versus wakefulness. He once again allowed Koref to choose their seats as befitted the Bazhir’s role as sponsor; since they were two of the first to enter the hall he selected an empty spot and they waited to see who would join them there. Many chose to avoid them; Alan wasn’t sure if the sneers and scowls that were directed their way were earned by his parentage or that of his friend’s, or were simply a result of early morning grumpiness. Two older boys nodded politely as they chose seats further down their table, but they were deep in a discussion of their own and didn’t speak to either Alan or Koref. Others came after them, although all sat on the opposite side of the two tall brunettes and some pointedly looked away from the end of the table where Alan and his sponsor sat.

He noticed Lachren of Mindelan arrive and hesitate in the doorway, Fianola stone-faced behind him, but he ducked his head and scurried to the line of servers before Alan could decide whether or not he should wave to the other boy. They didn’t have anything to actually connect them, but because Alan was the son of the realm’s first female knight and Lachren the nephew of the girl who was likely to be the second, it seemed like they ought to. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that yet; he was used to the idea of people knowing him for his parents, but forming an alliance—or a friendship—with the other boy simply on the basis of having family who upset people for the same reasons seemed strange. Alan decided that since Lachren was the senior page he could safely let the other boy choose to make the first move—or not.

Lachren chose to sit elsewhere today, settling at the very edge of one table in the far corner of the page’s side of the room. Fianola’s expression was unreadable as she followed him although when three other boys who had been sitting there jumped up and moved her posture stiffened. Alan made a mental note to offer her advice about how to hide her feelings not only with her face, which she seemed to have learned already, but with her body language as well. He sighed.

His attention was drawn away from them by the arrival of Fianola’s sister and her sponsor, Qarat, because Koref nudged him and pointed discreetly. Qarat was scowling as he walked into the hall behind Teodorie, who giggled. Alan raised his eyebrows, curious, then almost laughed himself when he saw that Koref wore the same expression. “I suspect,” the boy from the Bloody Hawk Tribe said quietly, “that poor Qarat is discovering that he has received more than he bargained for. My sympathies are unmeasurable.”

Alan smirked, then sobered and said in a voice as bland as Koref’s, “As are mine.”

Koref didn’t laugh but his dark eyes danced.

When Alan looked at the food line again his eyes met Roget’s of Stone Mountain; the pale boy was staring at him. He looked quickly away. Alan frowned, wishing that he had his father’s knack for guessing a person’s thoughts and motives. If Roget was going to be an enemy he would as soon know about it now. Alan watched as the boy hesitated, sneaking another glance at where he and Koref sat. He took a deep breath, as though bracing himself for something, but what that was Alan did not find out; the stocky red-head who had whispered to him yesterday once more bent forward to mutter something in Roget’s ear. The blonde flinched, dropped his eyes, and followed the red-haired boy to a table at the front of the room. Yvenne, yawning widely over her tray, followed them.

“Michabur of Blythdin,” Koref said quietly, seeing who Alan stared at. “He is a second year page.”

Alan noticed that Koref did not say “a second year page like myself,” and wondered if the other boy had left that off his comment on purpose. He had a feeling that Koref was as careful with the words he chose as Alan’s mother wasn’t.

“I see,” Alan said. “Like you, yes?”

Koref’s eyes twinkled. “I too am a second year page, yes,” he said.

Alan grinned. “I see,” he said again.

Koref smiled. “I suspect you do,” he replied. Alan was suddenly struck by the feeling that his sister would like the Bazhir boy.

Before either of them could say anything else Padriag haMinch walked in to say the morning prayer. The pages and those squires who were not out with their knight-masters rose to their feet. He once again asked Mithros for guidance and praised the god’s strength and justice. Alan was thoughtful when they sat back down and he ate slowly although the food was good.

Koref interrupted him by leaning forward over his bowl of oatmeal and berries: “What shall we do first this day, my elderly page? You must see the palace tailors to collect your uniforms, of course, and there is the castle to familiarize yourself with—unless you know it already?”

“I have been here before,” Alan confessed, “but not so often that I’m an expert on the place.”

“It is a very confusing building,” Koref said, “and I do not believe that I find it thus merely because I am more used to straightforward sand and tents than tunnels and stone walls. Perhaps we should get the bulk of our tasks out of the way first and then spend the rest of the day exploring,” he suggested.

Alan nodded. “Good idea,” he said. He glanced around the room, wondering what the rest of the first years and their sponsors were planning. He worried about the girls, or at least about Teodorie and Yvenne; he was sure that Lachren would treat Fianola fair if only to avoid trouble at home but he wasn’t as sure about Qarat and Roget was a mystery. _You can’t do anything about it,_ he told himself firmly. _You’re only a first year yourself. You can’t get involved in how other sponsors do things with their charges—at least not until you’ve got a very good reason_. He sighed; this sense of duty was beginning to be no fun at all, just as his parents had warned him.

When they finished their meal and headed off underground to the palace tailors Alan found that most of the other pairs of sponsors and their new pages had had the same idea. He and Koref ended up walking next to Roget and Yvenne and he could see Lachren’s bowed head and Fianola’s stiff shoulders ahead of him. He craned his neck looking for Teodorie but while he spotted both Vinlet and Nomlan, and their page-sponsors, further down the hall he couldn’t see either of the other two new pages and their sponsors anywhere. He did his best to put it out of his mind.

Fortunately Yvenne seemed to have woken-up properly and was now happy to chatter to all of them. Distracted as he was it took Alan a moment to follow-along with her quick words, but when he did he grinned.

“You’re going to look awful in red and gold,” she was telling him cheerfully. “Not that most people look good in it, but hair like yours?” She pointed at his reddish-blonde locks and shook her head sadly, although her smile never wavered. “Awful,” she declared, “absolutely awful. Healers will stop you whenever they see you to ask if you’re sick, you’ll look so bad.”

Alan laughed and Koref chuckled. Roget sneaked a glance at them and then looked away quickly. He increased his pace, as though hoping to pull away from them, but Yvenne either didn’t notice or pretended not to notice and he was forced to fall back or risk walking away from his charge. His pale, pretty face was unsettled although, frustratingly, Alan still couldn’t work out why. He was starting to dislike Roget simply because the boy was a mystery, and that wasn’t fair.

In an attempt to counter his feelings, he decided to strike up conversation with the page from Stone Mountain: “What year of training are you in?” he asked Roget.

The boy glanced at him and then quickly away again. “My second,” he said shortly, looking only at the walls.

“Like Koref,” Alan observed, glancing sideways at his sponsor. Koref shrugged, his expression placid and offering no information for Alan to glean. He wasn’t sure if that was because Koref had no opinion on Roget to offer or because he wanted Alan to form his own opinions of their fellow pages without undue influence from Koref. Alan wrinkled his nose, wishing that the Bloody Hawk boy was a little more forthcoming and a little less fair.

Roget said nothing else as they walked to the tailors but he did put as much distance between himself and the others as he could in the wide stone hallway. Yvenne more than made up for his silence, telling them all about her ride to the palace and what her papa had told her before she’d left and how her little brothers had whined about being left behind. They were twins and the stories she told about them caused Alan to reflect on his own childhood with more sympathy toward the people that he and Aly had vexed than he usually felt. He didn’t want to admit that the hellions Yvenne described reminded him of himself, but he did tell her that he had a twin sister. She immediately pestered him with questions about Aly, leaving Alan feeling wrong-footed: he couldn’t very well tell these people he hardly knew that his father was one of the realm’s chief spies nor that his sister planned to go into their da’s line of work, which meant that he had to quickly invent a lie. As his da had taught him, he tried to use as much truth in it as possible:

“Well Aly isn’t quite sure what she wants to do with herself, but she knows it won’t include a knighthood. She’s not really cut out for a knight’s life, anyway,” he added with a grin at the thought.

“Because she’s a girl?” The question was Roget’s and his voice was neutral, curious; so was his expression.

Alan frowned. “Because she’s even worse at taking orders than our mother,” he retorted.

Roget nodded while Kalef snorted and Yvenne giggled. Her attention immediately switched from Aly to Alan’s mother. For once he was glad to talk about The Lioness; it meant he didn’t have to worry over what he told them about his sister. He was telling a story about one of his mother’s many clashes with Stormwings when they reached the palace tailors at last: it was a large room, divided by a number of curtains, stacks of rolled cloth, and half-finished clothing. There were over two dozen people inside and they all seemed to be working at a frantic pace, whipping measuring cords around and cutting patterns and dipping their needles through cloth faster than Alan’s eye could follow without using his Sight. It was dizzying and all the pages stopped on the threshold for a moment to stare.

“Come.” It was Koref who finally led them forward, beckoning gently. If he was amused at the way the new pages gawped he kept it to himself. Alan noticed Fianola and Lachren already in the care of a young man wearing the standard palace servants’ uniform of dark breeches and white shirt. He was sorting through a pile of tunics; Lachren already held a bundle of neatly folded cloth in his arms.

Alan was pulled away from watching them when Koref tugged at his arm. A stout man with a short-cropped beard was holding out a cord. Alan obligingly raised his arms and let the man measure him. A number of sturdy work tunics, hose, and breeches were dumped in his arms, followed by a few sets of dress uniform in that eye-smarting red and gold. He wasn’t used to being manhandled quite so briskly and he stumbled. Koref steadied him and picked up the bright tunic he had dropped. “You will never be allowed to serve in the Great Hall at feasts if you cannot even keep your clothing clean when you do not wear it,” he observed teasingly.

Alan grinned at him. “I will try to do better in future,” he promised. “I hope to be a credit to your teaching.”

Their banter was interrupted by a girl’s voice saying loudly, “For Mithros’s sake, it’s just measurements! If I don’t even have to undress I don’t see why it matters if it’s a man or a woman who does them!”

They both turned to look. Teodorie was standing with her hands on her hips, glaring up at Qarat who scowled down at her. He had a hand out, pointing down the room toward the other end where more female servants worked. A man in serving colors holding a measuring cord limply in his hands stood behind the girl, his face troubled as he watched the young Bazhir.

Koref sighed. Alan barely heard him over the tumult of the room, but the sound was unmistakable: disappointment. He glanced sideways. His new friend’s expression was sorrowful and his dark eyes were hooded. When he caught Alan looking at him he forced a thin smile. “I do not share my mother’s magical strength, yet I feel as if I am having a vision of the future right now, and I do not foresee good things coming of this partnership.” He nodded toward Teodorie and Qarat.

Alan nodded agreement. “I’ve got the Sight,” he admitted, “but not the future-vision-having sort, and yet I too feel as though I can see what you describe.”

Koref sighed, shook his head, and then walked forward. Alan followed but had to stop to retrieve a pile of tunics when they slipped from his arms. By the time he had gotten his burden sorted-out he had missed whatever Koref said to Qarat, but he drew close to them in time to see the taller boy shake his friend’s hand from his arm and sneer back at him: “Just like your father.”

Koref bowed politely. “I can but hope to echo his wisdom,” he replied, “but I thank you for the compliment.”

Qarat scowled, turned away to glare at Teodorie, and snapped his fingers when she didn’t look at him immediately. She raised her eyebrows. He gestured sharply for her to follow him. Teodorie, halfway through being measured by the hunched-shouldered tailor, stared back defiantly. Qatar stalked to her side and waved the servant off. The man retreated quickly. “As your sponsor, it is my duty to protect whatever honor you have left, whether you like it or not,” he hissed. Alan couldn’t really hear him over the noise of the room, but he was more than close enough to read his lips, and what he saw made him roll his eyes.

“My honor is none of your business,” Teodorie retorted, her own voice loud and ringing out clear. “But even if it were, I don’t think that getting measured for clothes is going to compromise it. How do you think women get dressed? Or would you rather we all ran around naked to spare us the shame of being fitted for anything to cover ourselves?”

Qarat’s brown face darkened. “You are a harlot with the tongue of a guttersnipe,” he snapped.

“I can’t disagree that Teodorie has an unfortunate habit of speaking too plain.” Fianola had come up to stand behind her sister. Lachren trailed behind her, his head downcast and his arms full of her clothes. Fianola met Qarat’s gaze with her own, her brown eyes angry and dark. “But it seems to me you’ve got the same habit, so maybe you’d do better not to pick at a flaw you share. Makes you sound like a hypocrite.” Fists clenched on both sides and Qarat’s dark cheeks flushed.

“Seems to me we’re all drawing out a simple procedure a lot more than it needs,” Alan offered, his attempt to play the voice of reason trembling a little when they all turned to glare at him. “If Qarat finds it distressing to watch a woman be measured then mayhap it would be best for all if he doesn’t watch. I am sure that Koref and I can see Teodorie safely through the ordeal. It can be difficult to be faced with elements of a culture that are alien to your own,” he bowed to the Bazhir boy who sneered back at him, “so why put yourself through such trouble when there is no need? I can recall many a time when I have been left equally wrong-footed by unfamiliar traditions and rituals. It is no shame to admit that you are uncomfortable around things that are strange or new.”

“I am ‘uncomfortable,’ as you say,” Qarat snarled, “only when I am around the unnatural and the blasphemous.”

“Then you will doubtless find the next few years most uncomfortable,” Koref said sympathetically. “We are in a land of heathens, after all.” He shrugged, his smile cheerful, and Alan found himself grinning in response. Qarat’s mood did not lighten though; he made a rude gesture at them all and stalked away.

“What did that mean?” Yvenne asked. She sounded excited rather than upset.

Koref and Alan—who knew the Bazhir both through his mother’s connections and the soldiers of the King’s Own and knew exactly what that gesture had meant—exchanged glances. It was Alan who answered, after a long silence: “I could be wrong,” he said slowly, “but I believe it is a reference to how much Qarat loves camels.”

A strangled, choking sound came from Koref. “Indeed,” he gasped, swallowing laughter, “so it would seem. He has much love and he wishes for all of us to share it with the beasts. Now come,” he continued, straightening up and forcing his expression into something more dignified, “we all have many things to do this day, I am sure, and as Alan says, this part of it is a task that should have been brief. Let us move on with things.”

Teodorie, her sister hissing in her ear, returned to the tailor and his cord. The man’s face was mottled—with embarrassment or rage, Alan could not tell—and his movements brisk, but he piled an appropriate number of tunics and hose in Teodorie’s arms before shooing her on her way.

By the time she was finished Fenneck had arrived with both Pollock and Casil to procure his own clothing and Yvenne had been hustled away by Roget. Alan frowned as he watched them leave, wishing that he knew what to make of the Stone Mountain boy.

They stayed with Fianola and Lachren as they deposited their things in their rooms and left to collect the rest of the gear they would need for the year’s training, Teodorie seemingly not at all distressed at having been abandoned by her sponsor. “It’s a shame to Qarat’s honor, not fulfilling his duty as a sponsor,” Lachren muttered to Koref as the three new pages stood in line for their leatherwork. Alan had a feeling he wasn’t supposed to overhear, but he had sharp ears and unlike Fianola he wasn’t distracted by trying to lecture a little sister.

Koref replied with a shrug. His words were even softer than Lachren’s and Alan had to strain to hear him: “I do not believe that Qarat’s intention in sponsoring young Teodorie was the same as ours when we stood for Fianola and Alan here. I hesitate to speak for others of course, but if I were to guess, I would suppose that he thought he could talk the girl out of her plans for a knighthood—all meant for her own good, I am sure, and that of her family’s good name,” he added with a sour smile. “Qarat is one of those who feels that he knows better than others what they ought to do with their lives.”

Lachren nodded then asked, “How long have you known him?”

“Oh, no longer than you,” Koref replied. “The Bloody Hawk Tribe and the Sunset Dragon Tribe do not have much to do with one another. The desert is large, you know.” His voice was mild but Lachren blushed.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

Koref waved the apology away and stepped forward to rejoin the new pages as they finished collecting their gear. Alan resolved to always pay attention to Koref’s advice; his new friend was clearly both clever and observant. He was glad that Koref had chosen to sponsor him and made a note to include his name in his next letter to his mother. She would be pleased to hear that her place among the Bloody Hawk Tribe had proved so helpful to her son. She would probably be even more pleased to hear that he had made a friend.

Da would be pleased to hear that he was a clever one.

 

Lachren was something else; Alan still wasn’t sure if he even wanted to be the other boy’s friend. It felt too forced, like anything between them would be a result of bowing to expectation rather than a natural closeness. At the same time he did not dislike the quiet, nervous boy, and he had a feeling that the source of Lachren’s nerves was not so very far from the things that worried Alan himself. He put the thoughts out of his head as best he could; now was no time to fret over such things, not with his first year of page training looming up ahead of him.

Then there were Fianola and Teodorie—and Yvenne of course, although it was impossible to dislike chattery little Yvenne. One might grow tired of the girl and her prattle; one couldn’t possibly hate her for it, though. Fianola and Teodorie were more complicated. Alan wasn’t sure how he felt about them yet, nor how they felt about him—the Lioness’s son—but he knew also that his feelings hardly mattered. He would support all three girls as much as he could for his mother’s sake if not their own. Ma could not come to court and help these three young women any more than she had been able to help Keladry of Mindelan. Because Alan was here, he could. So he would do what he could. And hopefully they would come to like him, and he them, or it might well be awkward—but he would still do it.

And that was duty, just like ma and da had always talked of.

Alan made a face and caught himself staring across the dining hall at Roget of Stone Mountain. He made another face. Aly was the one who liked mysteries, not him. He liked knowing where he stood with people, liked knowing which way they would jump and what made them think that way. He liked being able to depend on a person, one way or the other; he’d almost rather have Roget for an out-and-out enemy than endure much more of this uncomfortable uncertainty.

Maybe he was just being too fair, trying to give the boy a benefit of the doubt that he didn’t deserve; certainly the red-headed Michabur sitting next to Roget made no secret of his feelings and he seemed fast friends with the blonde boy. That should have been enough evidence of Roget’s leanings to let Alan be certain about him, both Michabur and the other rude boys who surrounded him and Roget, but something wouldn’t let him write the Stone Mountain boy off that easily. Maybe it was just the fact that, while Michabur and the rest of his cronies made no secret that they thought Yvenne was little more than a very good joke, Roget never joined in on the laughter but just smiled thinly and held his tongue.

Or maybe he was just naturally grim. Goddess knows that losing a brother to the Chamber of the Ordeal wold have soured Alan’s outlook on life.

He sighed and picked at his food. It was very good, and their rambles all over the castle that afternoon had left him with a fair appetite, but now that he was faced with the prospect of eating—and the faces of his fellow pages—most of his hunger had shriveled up.

“Those who do not eat before battle are eaten by battle.”

Alan looked up, startled. It was Lachren who had spoken, sitting across from him. Now the other boy’s pale cheeks flushed pink and he ducked his head, letting his bangs slide forward to hide his shy hazel eyes.

“What?” Alan asked, not sure that he had heard him correctly.

Lachren mumbled something.

Fianola poked him in the side with her elbow. “Speak up properly,” she scolded, sounding very much a girl who had younger siblings.

Lachren’s blush deepened. He didn’t look up from his plate but he did say, louder, “Those who do not eat before battle are eaten by battle. It’s—it’s something my Aunt Kel said to me, something one of her trainers used to tell her in Yaman. She said it would, would be important to eat well during training because they work us hard, and...” He trailed off, gulping audibly.

“Very good advice,” Koref said after a moment. He pointed at Alan with a fork. “You should take it, old man.”

“My mother has told me much the same thing,” Alan admitted.

“Then it must be good advice indeed.” It was impossible to tell Fianola’s feelings from her flat voice.

Alan shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, his own voice teasing, “she sometimes gives very bad advice. Especially when it comes to things like polite conversation, diplomacy, or discretion.” He was rewarded by a few chuckles; his mother’s temper was legendary. “I’m not so sure I trust her fashion advice either,” Alan added, “but when it comes to battles...” He shrugged. “Well, probably best to listen to all these clever women and eat up, eh?”

He was rewarded by a tiny smile on Lachren’s lips and a sage nod from Koref. “Very wise indeed,” the Bazhir said and speared one of Alan’s potatoes, popping it into his mouth before Alan could object.

Fianola giggled. It was the first time Alan could remember hearing her laugh.

He grinned, feeling warm inside—and hungry again. He returned the favor by stealing a forkful of Koref’s greenbeans. Soon they were all eating from one another’s plates, laughing.

Alan amended his mental note about what to write his parents. They would be glad to hear he had made _friends_.

They were leaving the cafeteria together when Alan was suddenly yanked sideways into a hug. He squawked, startled, as his nose was filled with the scent of horse. He grinned when he recognized his Aunt Diane, her brown curls full of straw and her smile wide. He wasn’t as close to Diane the Wildmage as his older brother, but she was still one of his favorite unofficial aunts and seeing her now, something tight loosened in his chest. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until the sight of her eased his heart. He’d been feeling very out of his element, but he had to remember that while this place wasn’t home and Aly was far away, he did have friends here in the palace.

“Alan!” Diane cried happily. “I didn’t realize you had decided to enter page training! Why didn’t you write ahead? I would have come to greet you sooner! I only just found out you were here. Is you moth—no, Alanna is up north right now isn’t she? Well, is your father still here, then? Your sister?”

Alan shook his head. “Da went home earlier,” he said, although now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure that George had; more likely he had decided to spend the night at least, either in talk with Myles and his other friends in the palace or “slumming it” with old friends from Corus. He wouldn’t have told Alan his plans because he wouldn’t have wanted his son to think that he was hanging around to look over his shoulder, but he’d still be nearby wouldn’t he? Just in case Alan changed his mind, or worse. Still, Daine knew his da well, and it wasn’t like she didn’t have sources of her own; she could find his da if she wanted to. Continuing as if he hadn’t just had a small revelation, Alan said, “Aly didn’t come. I think she was afraid that if she got too close to the palace she’d get dragged into training too.”

Daine laughed. “Poor girl,” she said, not sounding at all sympathetic. As if noticing them for the first time, she looked up at the other pages standing back uncertainly. Some were gawking unabashedly at the Wildmage while others studied the floor or the walls, avoiding her eyes. Alan was confused for a moment until he realized that to most of the other pages, Veralidaine Sarrasri wasn’t a friendly aunt but rather a near-mythical figure of strange magics and stranger stories. Those who didn’t recognize her would just see a strange commoner woman covered in horsehair inexplicably manhandling the Lioness’s son. He had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. “Hello,” Daine said, smiling at them all.

“Would you like to meet my friends?” Alan asked impishly.

There was a suppressed flutter of excitement—and panic. From the sideways glance Daine bestowed on him, she had seen it too. “I’d be delighted,” she said dryly. Alan grinned. He started with his aunt of course, because she outranked all of the pages—at least as far as Alan was concerned. “For those of you who do not know her, may I present Veralidaine Sarrasri, known as the Wildmage? I believe she will be one of our teachers,” he added. He wasn’t sure if the second year pages had had Daine in class yet; he knew that she and Uncle Nummy only taught the more advanced lessons and besides, she was often out on duties for the king. He doubted that they were on a first name basis either way, though.

“Unless they’ve changed things without telling me,” Daine shrugged and smiled, “or some disaster calls me away.”

Alan turned to the pages next. “This is Koref Seif, of the Bloody Hawk Tribe,” he said, indicating the Bazhir boy with a gracious head-bob. “I have the honor of being sponsored by him this year.”

Daine clasped her hands and bowed politely; Koref returned the greeting with grace, although the bow he gave the renowned Wildmage was deeper than the one she gave him. “I have not met the Bloody Hawks,” Daine said, “but their name carries great honor. Tortall will be lucky to have one of their sons in the ranks of the knighthood.”

“The honor is mine, Wildmage,” Koref replied softly. “I hope to do my people proud.”

Going in honor of seniority, Alan introduced Lachren next: “This is Lachren of Mindelan, a second year page like Koref.” The brown-haired boy gulped, hunched his shoulders, and jerked a bow.

“Mindelan?” Daine’s eyebrows raised. “You must be related to Keladry.”

“My aunt, mistress.” Lachren’s voice was a whisper.

Daine grinned. “If you’ve half your aunt’s skill with horses, I think you’ll do fine,” she told the nervous boy. “If you do have any trouble with the mount they assign you, though, I hope you’ll let me know. I’d be glad to help if I can.”

Lachren twitched, bowed again, and murmured a pale-faced thank you.

“This is Fianola of Princehold,” Alan continued, “being sponsored by Lachren.” He wasn’t sure if he should point out that despite her age and height Fianola was a first year page, but doubtless Diane would figure that out by the fact that she had a sponsor.

The smile Daine turned on the dark-haired girl was warm. “Welcome to Corus,” she said. “I hope it lives up to your expectations.”

“Thank you, my lady,” Fianola said, apparently forgetting that she was wearing a tunic instead of skirts because she bobbed a curtsy.

Daine laughed. “I’m no lady,” she replied, “just Daine. Really.”

Lachren looked like he was going to pass out at the very idea of addressing the Wildmage by a nickname. Fianola’s cheeks were pink and she was staring at Daine like she wasn’t sure yet what she thought of her. Koref’s expression was polite and amiable but neutral, befitting the son of a chieftain. The other pages were hanging back, whispering to one another, watching Alan and his friends and his adopted aunt with wide or narrowed eyes. The corner of Daine’s lip twitched and Alan knew she had seen them. Rather than comment though, she turned back to Alan. “If you’re not busy, would you like to go meet some of my friends? I know you’ve got an important day tomorrow,” she added, “so if another time would suit better—”

“I’d love to,” Alan said quickly, then glanced at his sponsor. “Unless there are duties I should see to first?” he asked. When Koref shook his head Alan said, “Well then would you like to come along?”

“You all may, if you’d like,” Daine offered to the other three.

Lachren’s pale cheeks went paler. Fianola looked uncertain. “I should check on my sister,” she said after a moment. Alan couldn’t tell if she sounded apologetic or relieved—maybe both. “Perhaps...another time?”

Daine nodded. “Of course,” she said. “I’ll see you all around again later, in class if not elsewhere. Lachren?”

“Um,” he said, looking panicky at being directly addressed, “I should—I should get—ready for training—”

“As you like,” Daine said smoothly. “So Alan, Koref, what shall it be? Stables, kennels, or menagerie?”

“Menagerie,” the boys said in unison, then grinned at one another.

Daine chuckled. “I suppose you’ll get enough time with horses soon enough, hmm? Well, come along then.”

She took them by back paths, ignoring when a few servants scurried away whispering. Alan frowned, thinking that it was hardly fair for them to treat Aunt Daine that way when she had done so much for the kingdom, but if she was bothered she didn’t let on. Instead she questioned both Koref and Alan as they walked, asking Alan about his family and Koref about life among the Bloody Hawk Tribe. She was fascinated by the Bazhir; although she knew many she had never lived among them and she was particularly interested in everything Koref could tell her about their horses. Eventually he had to laugh and admit that having not been trained as a horsemaster himself, there was a limit to how much he could tell her. Daine laughed at herself. “Fair enough,” she said, and changed the subject to Thom’s latest studies.

Alan had not been to the menagerie in years. It was even more impressive than he remembered: enormous, taking up an entire section of once-abandoned outbuildings at the edge of the palace nearest the Royal Forest—opposite where the stables were, to prevent the horses being spooked by the smells of the inhabitants—with some of the enclosures opening onto the outdoors. Each section held its own individual micro-climate. The Royal University mages weren’t done with their work yet, so there were only a few variations of weather and temperature and, Daine told them, the spells needed constant maintenance at the moment to stop them from collapsing, but it was a breathtaking work of magic and craft nonetheless.

Since Daine was there—and Alan was now too large to be considered bite-sized by the bigger creatures, as he and Aly had been the last time they’d visited the menagerie—they were allowed to actually enter the enclosures and meet the creatures there close-up. Alan wasn’t sure that was a good thing in every case, but with Koref there he couldn’t admit that there were some animals he’d prefer to see only from a distance—although a glance at his new friend when the Bazhir boy didn’t think anyone was watching him told Alan that perhaps he wasn’t the only one feeling reluctant.

Daine didn’t flinch from any of the animals though, no matter how big their teeth or claws, and with her there to keep everyone friendly it was actually fun being licked by lions and head-butted by buffalo. Being surrounded by furry bodies also served as an excellent distraction against nerves over the first day of training, and it wasn’t until Alan was lying in his bed staring at the ceiling in the dark that he remembered to worry.

Before he could properly start to fret, he fell asleep.

 


	4. First Lessons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update is for everyone who left such kind notes and kudos, but especially for Jean. Thank you all.

**September of 459 H.E., Royal Palace of Corus**

Alan reminded himself of the advice Keladry of Mindelan had given her nephew and forced himself to eat everything on his breakfast tray, although most of it tasted like sawdust. What if he made a fool of himself? What if he embarrassed his mother? What if everyone else laughed at him so much that he had to leave Corus in shame? What if he wasn’t actually cut-out to be a knight any more than Aly was? What if—

“Stop that.”

A callused palm pushed down gently on his hands, stilling them. Alan looked down to see Koref’s brown hand lying atop his own pale fingers. He had been worrying at the skin around his nails which was now pink and agitated. Alan blinked, surprised. He had thought he’d abandoned that particular nervous habit three years ago. He met Koref’s eyes and blushed. “Thanks,” he muttered.

Koref drew his hand back with a shrug. “We will begin the day with staff training,” he said. “There is no need to abuse your fingers beforehand when they will surely see enough of it in the practice yards very soon.”

Alan laughed, still feeling nervous but not as panicky as he had before Koref had interrupted his spiral of worry.

At least he wasn’t the only one who looked sick and anxious, he told himself as he looked around at his fellow pages. They gathered in the training yard, the first years all clumping together—even the girls—while the older students yawned and traded sleepy pushes and pokes. Everyone drew to attention the moment the training master walked in, though. Padraig haMinch looked at them all through narrow brown eyes. He looked no more cheerful than he had on Alan’s arrival. He was followed into the yard by a man that Alan knew by sight and reputation, although no more than that: Obafem Ezeko, a tough-looking former Carthaki. Alan looked at the short man’s hard, broad muscles and gulped. While Padraig looked like he was carved out of stiff, knotted wood, he was built narrow and lean. Ezeko, on the other hand, was a barrel of a man—or at least he looked that way to the nervous Alan, who had inherited his father’s lean build and his mother’s diminutive height.

He wasn’t comforted by the fact that Koref was an inch shorter than him and only a little stockier and he had survived a year of page training already. Alan knew better than most that the Bazhir were a hardy people who thrived in a harsh and unforgiving climate. Just because Koref could handle the workload didn’t mean that Alan would be able to.

 _No_ , he told himself furiously, _stop doubting. Ma was three years younger than you, and smaller, and_ she _did all right. More than all right! So pull yourself together!_

Alan took a deep breath, held it for a five count, then let it out. He repeated the count until he was calm, like Uncle Nummy had taught him and Aly when they were little and first learning to focus their Sight. It helped.

So did the broad wink that Koref gave him as they all selected staffs and came to stand in lines facing one another, each separated by year. Alan settled into the stance easily; that at least was something familiar. The boy he was paired with was not; while Alan had seen him of course, and heard his name when they were choosing sponsors, he had not had a chance to make an assessment of Vinlet of Tirragen yet. He studied the other boy now. Vinlet was shorter than he was by a handspan and Alan guessed that he was no older than the ten years at which most pages started their training. For all that he was young he moved gracefully with his staff, almost catlike. His black curls were close-cropped, his features delicate. His dark face was unreadable but his eyes were fierce as they returned Alan’s gaze.

“On my count!” Ezeko barked. “High, middle, low! One, two, three!”

Alan moved as he was bid, noting that Vinlet didn’t seem to find returning the blows of a taller boy much of an inconvenience. They kept time easily and as Padraig and Ezeko walked around correcting the pages’ stances and grips Alan relaxed a little; it seemed that both his and Vinlet’s training with the staff was equal to their first lesson, at least. They both settled into the pattern and after a few minutes Alan risked a glance around to see how his fellow first years were faring. Nomlan and Fenneck stood to his right; Nomlan was flinching at each blow and Fenneck’s round face was all jutting, stubborn chin; he didn’t seem pleased to have such a skittish partner. Alan winced sympathetically when Fenneck’s staff banged into Nomlan’s fingers, making the pudgy boy yelp. From Fenneck’s sudden frown he hadn’t meant to hit his partner; that wouldn’t make Nomlan’s fingers sting any less but at least the boy wasn’t facing a bully who would go after more of such blows on purpose. Alan hoped there weren’t any brutes like that among the pages, but realism forced him to accept that there were surely one or two. He would just have to keep his eyes open to spot who.

To his left he saw that Teodorie and Yvenne had been paired together which was probably a good thing; Teodorie was the smallest of the first year pages by far but Yvenne was only a little taller. Too, neither of them was likely to pull any nasty tricks on account of thinking that girls didn’t belong in knight training. He peeked at Fianola; since there was an uneven number of both first and second year pages, the unattached two had been set to practice with one another: Fianola of Princehold and Roget of Stone Mountain.

That unsettled Alan and he almost lost count of the pattern, he was paying them so much attention. Vinlet hissed at him and Alan hurriedly returned his eyes to their staffs just in time to catch the next blow on something other than his thumb. “Sorry,” he mouthed. The eyebrows Vinlet raised at him were inscrutable but demanding. Alan resolved to keep his eyes on what he was doing. His ears, though, he kept pricked toward Fianola and Roget—but their rhythm stayed steady throughout the exercise. By the time staff training was over Alan’s neck ached from the tension of not turning it and his eyes burned from how fiercely he’d concentrated on watching Vinlet’s blows rather than allowing himself to peek at anything else.

His fingers, though, were no worse off than they’d been when the exercise started.

Staff training was followed with unarmed combat exercises led by two Shang warriors: Hakuin Seastone, a Yamani who had the title of the Shang Horse, and Eda Bell, the Shang Wildcat, an elderly white woman whom Alan had met briefly six years ago when she had stopped at Pirate’s Swoop to visit with his mother. Studying her now he could not see that the years had changed the little old woman much, but then he had been only seven and had not seen much of the tiny warrior. He supposed she must look older now but if her age inconvenienced her in any way it wasn’t evident from the way she lightly jumped down from the wall she was sitting on and stretched up to her tiptoes before walking over to the pages, Hakuin at her heels.

Alan had doubted that she would remember him, but when she caught him looking her way she winked cheekily.

“You older boys should know what to do, I hope!” Hakuin bellowed, his expression cheerful as he surveyed the pages. “Begin your warm-up drills while the Wildcat and I bruise these youngsters and we’ll be over to remind you of all the things you’ve forgotten shortly.”

No one chuckled, for all that the Horse’s tone had been joking. The second, third, and fourth year pages took themselves to the corner of the dusty practice yard that Hakuin had indicated and began going through a series of blocks and blows. Alan watched curiously until Eda Bell snapped her fingers under his nose. He jumped and looked back at her as the other first years giggled.

“No napping, Pirate’s Swoop,” she said, proving that she recognized Alan at least, whether because she remembered him from her visit years ago or simply because of the resemblance he bore to his mother. “Keep those curious eyes of yours over here where they belong. You can gawp at the others once you’ve proved you’re good for more than mischief.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Alan said with a polite bow. His mother spoke of this woman, and Shang warriors in general, with more respect that she did almost anyone else. That was more than enough to convince Alan to take Eda Bell seriously, for all that she looked more like someone’s grandmother than she did a fearsome fighter.

“I am Hakuin Seastone, the Shang Horse,” the other warrior announced. Like Eda Bell he wore plain clothes of a sturdy, roughspun cloth and slippers rather than shoes. “My companion is Eda Bell, the Shang Wildcat. We are here to teach you all how to hit and how to get hit, but your first lesson will be in learning how to fall.”

If Alan hadn’t been minding his manners he would have sighed. That wasn’t a lesson he was eager to revisit but at least it wasn’t something he had to worry about embarrassing himself at.

Hakuin beckoned the first page over to him, skinny Fenneck. The boy raised his round face proudly and strode over the Horse. Alan let his mind wander as Hakuin demonstrated the proper way to fall and slap the ground then glanced back in time to see Fenneck go soaring over Hakuin’s hip. He winced when the boy struck the ground hard and flat, hardly remembering to slap at all. The other first years didn’t fare much better; only Vinlet showed any promise at the exercise, although his timing wasn’t perfect. Alan suspected that it was natural agility, not training, that accounted for his lighter fall. When it was Alan’s turn he obediently let Hakuin toss him through the air; for a moment he debated twisting to land on his feet and strike back but decided against something that would look so much like showing off. Instead he let himself hit the ground, slapping and rolling to dispel the force of the fall, and hopped back to his feet only a little the worse for wear. It was Hakuin’s turn to wink.

“A natural at falling down, I see,” the Shang Horse teased, and Alan had to grin in response. When the Wildcat caught his arm from behind he wasn’t expecting it, but he turned with the tug on his elbow and side-stepped into a return blow. It never landed of course, but the Wildcat was clearly going easy on him: she could have tied him up into a bow if she’d wanted to but instead she simply tested him with a series of feints and grabs. Alan was sweating by the time she stopped. He’d thought that his da was wicked fast with hands and feet, but George Cooper didn’t hold a candle to the elderly Eda Bell. Alan stood panting with his hands on his knees as Eda Bell patted his shoulders.

“Your mother’s taught you some Shang basics I see, and your father’s taught you other things. Good. You can come train with the older boys and we’ll have even numbers for once.”

Alan looked up to see the other first years staring at him with mingled envy and amazement. It wasn’t until he saw the same slack-jawed combination of resentment and awe on the faces of the older pages that he realized how impressive his erstwhile tussle with the Wildcat must have looked. Since they hadn’t felt how much she’d pulled her blows, exploring his skills rather than trying to best him, they probably thought he’d actually been able to keep up with her. Alan smiled ruefully; they’d all learn differently the minute she actually had him spar against her or Hakuin, but he couldn’t deny that it was nice to be stared at with respect for once, even if it was largely misplaced.

He was kept too busy for the rest of the session to think about anything else. While his training was equal to that of the second years, he wasn’t familiar with the particular drills they used, and he struggled to keep up with the instructions.

By the time they were done Alan was happy to leave the Shangs and head to the archery court with the other pages. _At least your neck isn’t stiff any more_ , he told himself positively. He now felt like a wet noodle that had been pounded everywhere, which wasn’t much of an improvement, but he certainly felt limber. He tried to be happy about that.

When Allet of Fenrigh, a second year and the tallest of the pages, clapped him on the shoulder Alan winced at the blow but smiled at the dour-faced page’s words: “Your father taught you some of that? Remind me not to get on his bad side.” He couldn’t tell Allet how prudent a course of action that was, but he did grin at him.

“It’s hardly shocking,” someone else said loudly from behind them, “unarmed fighting is the purview of savages and commoners after all. I can’t believe that as knights we even bother to learn it. In my father’s time there were higher standards for training.”

Alan turned around to see Staur of Richcaffery sneering at them. He forced himself to grip his temper and replied coolly, “To each their own of course, but personally I prefer a training regimen that’s more interested in teaching us the skills that will keep up alive and help us to victory than one that’s concerned with _propriety_.” He put a twist on the word like it was something dirty.

Staur scowled at him. “Of course _you’d_ think so,” he retorted. “Like I said...savages.”

Alan scratched his head, deliberately vulgar. “Sorry,” he said, “I’m confused. Are you talking about my mother, who’s in the Book of Gold but was adopted by the Bazhir, or my father, who was a commoner but Corus-bred? Your insults seem to be overlapping and it’s hard to keep track of where precisely they’re directed.”

Someone snorted; Alan didn’t turn to see who. He kept his eyes on Staur and his heavy-jawed face, steadily reddening, and his meaty fists, tightly clenched at his sides. The blonde boy was only a hair taller than Alan but he had broad shoulders, a thick build, and seemed to be on the verge of attacking. If he did, Alan didn’t want to be caught off-guard.

“You sound almost proud to be related to the sand-lice.” A new voice made them both turn: Michabur of Blythdin, his freckled face twisted in a sneer.

“I am.” Alan raised his eyebrows. “It was a great honor for my mother to be adopted by the Bloody Hawk Tribe.”

Michabur made a noise of disbelief, or maybe disgust. Alan caught sight of Qarat Merhent over Michabur’s shoulder; his expression was dark. Alan had to restrain a smirk. He had a feeling that Michabur had just made an enemy he hadn’t meant to with his foul words about the Bazhir. He filed the thought away; enemies divided were always easier to deal with than enemies united, his da had told him and his sister over and over. While Qarat and Michabur might have similar feelings about female warriors, and even perhaps about Alan himself, there was definitely a wedge there that could be exploited to have them turning on each other as much as on anyone else. He knew that if Aly were here she’d have had something clever to say to point them toward one another already but Alan wasn’t quite as quick with a quip as his sister. He settled for shrugging and turning away, as though neither Michabur nor Staur were of any further interest.

“I expect Blythdin is merely envious.” That soft voice was small, dark Vinlet, a thin smile on his face. “After all, we have all heard of his grandfather’s embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Bazhir. That they would adopt the Lioness after so thoroughly routing _his_ kin—well, no doubt that’s a wound that still stings.”

“You want to take me to task over _my_ relations, traitor?” Michabur retorted furiously.

Vinlet’s cheeks flushed and his eyes flashed. He opened his mouth to reply but the sergeant’s bellow silenced them all: “HURRY IT UP, PAGES! THE TARGETS DON’T GET CLOSER THE LONGER YOU TAKE TO GET TO THEM!”

As one they turned and trotted down the field, although a glance over his shoulder showed Alan that Vinlet was practically being towed by his sponsor, Allet, who was talking fast in his ear. From the set look of rage on the smaller boy’s face Alan didn’t think Vinlet was listening.

The argument was halted by archery practice, although Alan had a feeling that none of it had been forgotten—by any of the boys involved. _At least we can still find things to fight about_ other _than the girls being here_ , Alan thought gloomily, and chose a bow that suited his draw. He didn’t consider himself an expert archer by any means, but he knew the technique well enough to not shame himself. Teodorie had the hardest time out of all of them: even the smallest bow was a little too large for her, and after a few misfired arrows that went no more than a few feet before sticking into the ground she overcompensated by drawing the string back too far and too fast, more often than not dropping the arrow before she could fire it. Her cheeks got redder with each mistake and Alan winced with sympathy for her.

“I’m a good shot,” she protested to her sister, “you know I am! These bows just aren’t right. If I had _my_ bow—”

“Well you don’t,” Fianola hissed back. “Just calm down and try and make do, all right?” Out of all the first years she was the best shot, although she started to lose distance near the end of the lesson and Alan could see her arms trembling with exhaustion. The other first years were neither very good nor very bad; if Alan hadn’t been older than all of them he would have felt very good about the showing he made, but it was hard to be proud of outshooting people two or three years his junior.

He was pleased when Sergeant Ezeko told him that he could practice with the second years tomorrow, although some of that pleasure was dashed when he heard the old armsmaster bark at Fianola that, “Knighthood is serious work, not a lady’s lark. If you can’t handle the work you’d best go home now. You can’t shoot a handful of Scanrans and expect the rest to turn tail and run for home before you wear yourself out.”

Alan couldn’t hear whatever Fianola muttered in reply. He sighed, thinking the sergeant was being unfair; she’d done better at finding the targets than all the boys, she just lacked their stamina. Given that noble ladies weren’t generally expected to do anything more strenuous than a bit of show-riding and falconry it should have surprised no one that she didn’t have much endurance yet. There was no reason for Ezeko to shame her over it. Nomlan of Payset hadn’t hit a single target but no one was telling _him_ to give up and go home. Alan scowled at the burgundy-clad sergeant, then noticed the training master watching him. He quickly dropped his eyes and tried to school his face into a neutral expression. He didn’t need to give Padraig any more excuses to dislike him.

“Riding now,” Padraig announced, his voice bland. Alan sneaked a glance at him but the training master was no longer looking his way and his expression was inscrutable. “You new boys, you’ll choose a mount from the spares. Pick carefully now, because that will be your horse for the remainder of your page training.”

 _What about the girls?_ Alan wondered sourly, but he knew better than to voice his annoyance aloud. Teodorie apparently didn’t have any such prudence, because she asked brightly, “What about us, my lord? Are we to choose mounts as well, or just the boys?”

For a long moment Padraig just stared at her. Alan wanted to both hug the girl and slap her for baiting the man. At last the training master said, “You will all choose mounts, please. Now.”

“Of course, my lord.” Teodorie bowed. “I just wanted to be clear, so I didn’t do anything I wasn’t supposed to.” Her sister grabbed her arm and towed her away before she could say anything else. Alan had to hide a grin even as he shook his head over the small girl’s impudence.

He didn’t bother to join the race to the stables; he had a feeling that he didn’t need to worry about being stuck with a lackluster mount. When he trailed the other first years inside he saw that his guess was right: Stefan Groomsman was there, waving him forward with a crooked grin on his face. Alan smiled back and ran to greet his father’s old friend. Stefan looked much the same as Alan remembered him from his last visit to Corus, perhaps a bit stouter, his face still ruddy and his blonde hair the same color as the straw that decorated it.

“Good t’see ye again, lad,” Stefan said. “Got a beast here I think ye’ll enjoy, picked ‘er out for ye m’self when your da writ and said ye’d be joinin’ us this year...”

Alan followed the hostler to the stall at the very back of the stables. A dainty mare waited for him there, her coat a rich sorrel brown and her mane so dark it was nearly black. Her ears were a little larger than usual, giving an inquisitive cast to her narrow face and bright brown eyes. The hair around her legs darkened so that it looked like she was wearing socks. Alan grinned and reached in his pocket for the apple he had prudently brought along. The mare stepped forward with a little skip and sniffed his face before neatly plucking the apple from his hand and crunching it between her teeth.

“Stefan, I love her,” said Alan. “What’s her name?”

Stefan blushed and scuffed his feet and muttered something, ducking his head so that his words were lost in his shoulder. “What?” said Alan.

The hostler’s cheeks got, if possible, even pinker. “I said, she’s called Crowbait. I didn’t name her,” he hastened to add.

Alan laughed. “She’s lovely,” he said, “I’m not going to complain about a fantastic horse just because she’s got a silly name.” He shook his head. “Anyway, it just gives us a reason to prove you’re no such thing, right girl?”

Stefan peeked up from under his strawish hair with a relieved grin. “Oh, well,” the hostler muttered and stepped forward to help Alan saddle his new horse.

Crowbait was a polite, obedient horse who trotted out neatly. As well behaved as she was, she afforded Alan plenty of chances to look around and study his fellow pages and their mounts. He was worried about both Teodorie and Vinlet, who were the shortest of his year-mates and probably both too small to be riding horses yet. He remembered hearing that pages had once started their training by riding ponies, but that the previous training master had switched them to starting on horses. Apparently Padraig haMinch had chosen to continue that policy.

Alan grimaced. Vinlet had chosen a dark, slim gelding who kept snorting and tossing his head whenever his rider’s grip on the reins slackened, but they seemed suited to one another and he expected that Vinlet would grow into his mount quickly. Teodorie looked much more out-of-place on her steed, a dun-colored mare who strained at the lead and kept trying to nip whatever horse was in front of her. Teodorie hauled on the reins and managed to keep her mount under control, but it clearly took a lot of effort.

At least everyone looked like they knew the basics of riding. That’s all they were allowed to do today anyway. Lord Padraig watched them with sharp eyes, barking out corrections here and there when he saw a page making an error. Alan was relieved not to be called-out on anything he was doing, although he couldn’t take much pride in it; he knew that even a novice rider would have had an easy time on such a charming mount as his mare.

“Who named you Crowbait?” he murmured to his new horse as they all turned toward the stable at the end of the practice session. “I don’t think much of their knowledge of horseflesh, I can tell you that. Was it just because you’re small?”

Crowbait _whuffed_ a heavy breath that sounded remarkably like a sigh. Alan grinned.

He was nearly done grooming her when his attention was drawn by a loud, harsh voice: “No, no, no! That is not how you treat a horse, Payset! Curse it boy, have you never brushed an animal before? You brush _with_ the hair, not against. Pay attention to your mount. All that fidgeting? That’s the horse letting you know that you’re doing something wrong. Now take your brush and—look at me when I’m talking to you, boy! There, like this. Now do the whole thing over, and do it right this time. Mithros’s shield, you’d think the lad had never touched a horse before…”

The training master stalked out of the stall across from Crowbait’s, his thin face dark and angry. Alan quickly looked away, pretending to be so focused on his own mount that he hadn’t heard a word of haMinch’s lecture. It didn’t take him long to finish with Crowbait and after an uncomfortably close inspection by Lord Padraig he was dismissed to bathe and prepare for lunch. He kept his head down as he left so as not to see poor Nomlan who was trying not to sniffle, his round face crimson with embarrassment, as he re-groomed his horse. Alan felt badly for the younger boy who would have little time to wash and none to rest before their meal by the time he was done, but he knew that the horse couldn’t be left untended either; their mounts deserved better care than that.

He relaxed when he saw Hallec of Nenan walking deeper into the stable to join Nomlan, but instead of helping the boy he had sponsored finish his task he leaned against the front of the stall and started in on a quiet lecture of his own. Alan frowned but there wasn’t anything he could do; it was Hallec’s job to advise and instruct the younger page after all, and just because Alan thought he was being unnecessarily harsh didn’t mean he was in the wrong to do so now.

“I _haven’t_ ever groomed a horse before,” Nomlan muttered mutinously, but he hunched his shoulders under Hallec’s scathing retort and jerked the brush faster instead of protesting again.

Alan shook his head and left them to it. He had no right to get involved and besides, he also needed to get cleaned-up before lunch.

Koref joined him on his walk up to the castle, the Bazhir moving as silently as ever so that Alan only noticed he had company when his sponsor spoke: “You ride a very nice horse. In fact, I believe that your horse is the finest in the entire stable.”

Alan grinned. “My father is friends with the chief hostler,” he said.

“Ah,” said Koref, nodding sagely. “That explains much.”

“Your mount is nothing to sneeze at either,” Alan said, and he wasn’t lying to flatter his sponsor; the pale mare that Koref rode was feisty but graceful.

Koref gave a slight bow. “She does not compare to yours I fear, but she is a fine animal nonetheless. Of course, you had something of an advantage over the rest of us in choosing your steed.”

Alan nodded; there was no denying it, and no point trying to. “Her name is Crowbait,” he said.

Koref snorted. “That is not a fitting title for such a lovely mare.”

“I agree,” said Alan, “but we’ll find a way to bear-up under it I think, she and I. And what of your mount?”

“She is named Buttercup, but I prefer to call her _Dances Beyond Sand_ ,” Koref said, switching to his native tongue to give the horse’s nickname. “I believe it suits her better.”

“That does sound like a fitting title for such a horse,” Alan agreed.

Their conversation was interrupted by Qarat and Teodorie walking past at a brisk pace as they argued furiously with one another—or at least, Teodorie was clearly furious, and while Qarat’s face was set like stone, his dark eyes burned unhappily. “It is a poor horseman who blames his mount for his own shortcomings,” Qarat snapped.

“Well Yvenne is no sort of horse _man_ anyway, and I’d like to see _you_ do as well if you were mounted on a creature as much bigger than you as her horse was, her.”

“It is her own fault that she reaches beyond her means. No one is forcing her to chase after a knighthood. In fact—”

“Yes, yes,” Teodorie interrupted, shaking her head, “we know. You don’t think girls belong in war, or in stables, or apparently in any place at all. I’m amazed that _you_ chose to be a knight, given that the very idea has been so soiled by ‘unnatural’ women doing it better than any men around could manage.”

Alan couldn’t stop himself snorting, but he covered his mouth quickly to hide his gleeful smile. Beside him he heard Koref cough, a more discreet reaction, but Alan thought he knew the other boy well enough by now to guess his feelings.

Qarat sputtered, then launched into a diatribe about interfering gods and magical crutches. Alan stopped listening, choosing instead to strike up a loud conversation about Bazhir horse-riding techniques with Koref. He was happy to offer details to corroborate or explain things that Alanna had mentioned in her stories and Alan soon became so interested in what Koref was saying that he forgot that he had only raised the topic in order to drown-out Qarat’s ugly words.

Soon other pages were joining-in with their own questions, or stories of different riding techniques they knew or had heard of: Jennik of Rosemark argued that there was no difference between the Bazhir traditions and that of the Zallara tribes of Southern Carthak, but both Koref and Vinlet had quickly pointed-out that just because both places were mostly desert was not reason enough to assume that riding had developed along identical paths. Dour-looking Allet of Fenrigh dodged the argument by bringing up the question of Shang warriors and their naming conventions—“why call yourself a horse when you prefer to walk rather than ride?”—and when that threatened to devolve into tedious semantics, Vinlet of Tirragen distracted them all with a story of trick-riders from Tusaine that he had seen perform once. Even Fianola joined the discussion, telling them about a canter-mounting technique that her castle armsmaster had taught her; it was hard to explain without demonstrating but it sounded fascinating, and when they reached the baths and had to separate so Fianola could go wash with the women a few pages actually groaned.

The boys were still talking about horses when they trooped in to lunch after washing and changing, and to Alan’s delighted surprise Allet waved Fianola and Lachran over to sit with him and Vinlet so that he could quiz her more. She ended up promising to demonstrate the move whenever they were granted free time in riding lessons and she smiled several times throughout the meal. Jennik had left them to sit with some of the other second year pages, but Alan was pleased that their quartet had grown by two even if he suspected it was only temporary; he doubted that a third year like Allet would choose to regularly sit with first and second year pages.

The ribbing he got from his year-mates on the way out of the dining hall over having sat with one of the _girls_ surely didn’t help. Alan glared sourly at their backs, but he didn’t have time to think of a sharp quip: he had to gather his things for the afternoon’s academic lessons.

Most of their teachers were Mithran priests and, since Alan was not only nearly as old as most pages were when they finished their training but had been schooled by his father, his grandfather, and a number of uncles and aunts of various talents, he found most of their lessons dull and stifling. Ordinarily Alan enjoyed learning—although not in quite the same fashion as his sister, or to the same obsessive lengths as his brother—but the tediousness of these lessons combined with his strenuous morning soon had him yawning.

He perked-up when they walked into History and Laws of the Realm, not because of any special interest in those subjects but because he knew the teacher: Sir Myles of Olau, his grandfather. Alan felt a little guilty for not having made time to seek him out and say hello earlier, but Myles had once been a knight himself, a very long time ago; surely he would remember how busy new pages were, and not take offense. More likely he would already know how nervous Alan was about his training and would have excused his apparent rudeness on those grounds. Alan almost sighed; it was nice to have family who knew you so well and accepted you faults and all, but sometimes it could be tiring too.

He didn’t mope long; no sooner had the pages sorted themselves out into seats—the older boys largely taking those in the back, leaving the front rows for the first years—than Myles entered, beaming at them all. He gave Alan a tiny wink and Alan grinned back, no longer caring that his grandfather was so adept at seeing through him; he was just happy to see a friendly and familiar face, especially one that wasn’t wearing those dull orange robes.

“Good afternoon!” Myles said brightly. “Welcome back to all of you who are returning from your summer pursuits, and a hearty welcome to those of you who are new. Now, when we left off last season we were talking about the Commoner Laws. As many of you will no doubt recall, there have been a number of legal issues brought-up between nobles and crown over many new laws that fall under this umbrella. Most of the time court settlements are required to solve the disputes, which cost the losing party a fair bit of coin. Nonetheless, despite often being on the losing side of these cases, many nobles continue to bring disputes regarding these laws before the realm’s courts. Can any of you offer me a guess as to why?”

“Because it’s ridiculous,” said a boy in the back, his voice ringing. Alan turned with the rest of the class to look at the speaker: Staur of Richcaffery, a heavy-jawed boy with stubbly blonde hair and broad shoulders. His fair skin was tanned from the sun and his squat nose was in the midst of peeling from sunburn. He was scowling, giving him an unpleasant and belligerent expression. “The whole point of commoners is that they’re _common_. They don’t deserve special treatment.”

“It isn’t special treatment,” exclaimed Lachren. He flushed when everyone turned to stare at him but he kept talking: “They still don’t have nearly the rights nobles do. The king is just trying to make sure that they’re treated fair, or more fairly than they used to be. There’s nothing bad about that; everyone deserves to have a decent life, common or noble or anybody.”

“Trust _you_ to stick up for the gutter-crawlers,” sneered Michabur, “you’re practically one yourself.”

He was interrupted by Roget tugging at his sleeve. He whispered something hurriedly in the other boy’s ear—Alan only caught a few words, but given that those included _wife_ and _Sir Myles_ and _be careful_ he had a feeling he could guess the gist—and Michabur’s pale face went paler still under his thick summer coating of freckles. He took one fearful glance at Sir Myles and turned away, suddenly fascinated by the stitching on the hem of his sleeves.

If Alan hadn’t been so annoyed he probably would have laughed. As it was, he just treated both Staur and Michabur’s hunched shoulders to a dark glower before he turned back to the front of the room. Grandpa Myles was watching them all with raised eyebrows and a calm expression. “Anyone else?” he said mildly.

After a moment Fianola’s hand crept upward.

“Yes,” said Myles, “Fianola of Princehold, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” Fianola said and started to stand, realized that the boys who had spoken already had not, and wobbled back into her chair. “I was just—just going to say, that change is…is often hard for people who think that it’s going to cost them something to, to let other people have access to the—the rights or privileges that they’ve been enjoying. They get scared that, that sharing means _losing_ something and they, well, they lash-out and get angry. And it’s because—because they’re cowards,” she finished, her voice suddenly fierce, “and if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be so scared of meeting other people on an equal footing for once.”

Alan stared at the girl, impressed. Her olive cheeks had turned dark red and her hands were curled into tight fists in her lap but she was meeting Myles’s gaze with a fierce expression. Alan felt like clapping but thought that that might be a bit too much to get away with, even from his grandfather.

“Very well said,” Myles nodded, “and a worthy supposition. Fear can be a powerful motivator and one that is especially appealing when combined with ignorance, and class divides and social norms means that many nobles are quite ignorant of commoner life experiences—and the reverse is also true, of course, although those commoners who serve the nobility directly in one way or another do accumulate quite a bit of insight into our daily lives and traditions, and often pass it along to their fellows in a sort of casual education that is not, I am afraid, performed in reverse.”

“That’s not fair, though,” said Jennik of Rosemark, frowning. “You can’t just call everybody a coward and think that explains everything. There are legitimate concerns to any kind of big social change. They aren’t _always_ for the best, not automatically, and you can’t just dismiss people’s concerns for the realm because you don’t want to think about the possible down-side.”

“Another very good point,” said Myles. “And what are some of these legitimate concerns?”

Jennik looked up at him, wide-eyed, and gulped. He was a stout boy and the second tallest of the pages despite being only a second year, but cringing down at his desk as he gaped at Myles he suddenly looked small. “Um,” he said, “well there’s money. The realm—the realm relies on its nobles for funds, and if those nobles have to pay-out more to their peasants, they won’t have as much to send to the crown. And that hurts everybody, because then the crown won’t have enough money to—to maintain roads, and pay the army, and the mages, and—and everybody else.”

“But if the commoners are making decent wages, won’t they be paying more taxes themselves?” asked Nomlan nervously.

“It’s the nobles who collect the taxes from the commoners in their lands,” sneered Staur. “If they aren’t allowed to take enough to make up for how much money they have to give to the commoners now, they won’t be able to pass it along to the crown.”

“Whether they want to or not,” Michabur muttered.

“That’s how taxes work,” Vinlet drawled. He was leaning back indolently in his chair, not bothering to turn and meet Michabur’s eye as he replied to him. “Oddly there seem to be very few people who actually _like_ to pay them, despite being more than happy to reap the benefits the crown uses those funds to secure.”

“And how about Tirragen?” asked Polluck of Groten in a voice that was far too innocent to be natural. “Do they get special enjoyment out of paying their taxes? Is _that_ why they pay so many more than the rest of us?”

“My family understands the value of duty to the realm,” Vinlet said grimly, still staring straight ahead. His dark face had gone closed and wooden and his hands were pressed flat against the surface of his desk. He looked like he was trying to merge with the wood in an effort to hold himself still.

Grandpa Myles cleared his throat. Everyone swiveled back around to look at their teacher. “I’m sure we’re all here because of our personal sense of duty to crown and kingdom,” he said, “regardless of the little variations in how we interpret that duty. Mind you, those variations are a meritous topic for discussion and one that we will be covering on many, many days in the future in this class, but for the moment we were talking about the Commoner Laws. If I could get us back on topic, please…”

He scanned the room a moment, then pointed at two students. “Qarat, Koref. The Bazhir do not make divisions of nobility or commonness within their tribes. I would be interested to hear an outside perspective on this issue. Do either of you have thoughts you would like to share?”

The two Bazhir pages exchanged glances, then Koref spread his hand in a polite “go ahead” gesture and Qarat straightened in his chair. “The Bazhir don’t make such distinctions because we don’t need to. The desert does not allow for the sort of softness that you find in the rest of Tortall. Among the Bazhir, you must either be exceptional or be nothing. That the Tortallans felt the need to divide their populace along lines of ‘noble’ and ‘common’ families shows a tendency to coddle those who do not show enough worth of their own.”

“Alternatively,” Koref suggested, “one might take that fact and from it draw the assumption that while the Bazhir govern via a meritocracy, the rest of Tortall prefers the stability of inherited power regardless of the potential for stagnation and possible ineptitude in its leadership that such practices carry. Not that I am suggesting that any of Tortall’s respectable nobles have ever demonstrated ineptitude, disloyalty, or corruption in their governance of the kingdom, of course; merely that the possibility is there.” He smiled politely. “The Bazhir by contrast take the approach that each man—or woman—must be measured by their own deeds and assigned the levels of respect and power merited by those measures, rather than relying on lineage and inheritance to compensate for any possible individual lacks.” He shrugged. “Who can say which system is better?”

Myles smoothed his hand over his beard, Alan guessed to hide a grin. “Only history can judge,” the portly knight said mildly.

“Indeed.” Koref inclined his head in a solemn nod, apparently unaware of the frowns of confusion—and occasional surly glares—that many of his fellow pages were casting in his direction. “From the standpoint of personal history then, I can offer only my own opinion, which is that any law that places two people on an equal footing so that their own merits may be fairly weighed and compared is most likely a good law.” He shrugged. “It is the Bazhir way at least, and thus the way with which I am familiar. So far, it has worked out well for us.”

“Is that why Tortall conquered you?” Michabur asked gruffly. “Because you were all too busy being equal for anybody to lead a proper resistance?”

Qarat leaned forward, his dark eyes flashing, but it was Koref who spoke first: “That is, I suppose, one way to interpret the history of conflict between our two peoples; another interpretation might point out that this history in fact shows a long period of resistance by the Bazhir against a much, much larger neighbor who spent a great many troops and resources over the length of many, many years to attempt to bring the Bazhir people to heel only to finally achieve the unification of our lands through the tactic of negotiations between equals.”

“That’s the interesting thing about history,” Hallec of Nenan observed lightly, “you’d think it would all be pretty straightforward since it’s just about things that have already happened that everyone can look back on the same, but it turns out there are loads of different ways of looking at these straightforward things, and then it all gets so much more complicated.” He shook his head mournfully but when he flipped his shoulder-length brown hair back out of his eyes, he made no effort to hide the smirk on his freckled face.

A few people chuckled.

“That’s the crux of the matter though, isn’t it?” Myles said, smiling at them all with a wry twist to the lips half-hidden beneath his beard. “Everyone interprets things differently, and the farther away one gets from an event—in both time and distance—the easier it is to have those varied interpretations impacted farther by things like personal bias and outside pressures.”

“As you saying that historians _lie?_ ” Nomlan asked, sounding scandalized.

Myles raised his eyebrows. It was a moment before he answered; when he did, it was with a bald shrug and a bland voice. “I am,” he said. “Not necessarily on purpose, either, although sometimes it is—for things like propaganda, or to perpetuate their own personal causes. Other times it’s simply due to the imperfect nature of human recollection. Yes, we all like to _think_ that our memories are accurate, and certainly oaths and legal judgments are predicated on the notion that people remember the things they have seen or done with a certain degree of accuracy, but it isn’t always the case. Think about breakfast this morning. Can everyone remember what they ate?”

Heads nodded, some slowly and some with enthusiasm. Alan’s mind whirled; he knew he’d eaten, remembered forcing himself to swallow his food, but what that food had been, he had no idea. The memory had been completely driven out of his head by the events of the day, if he had even noticed what he was chewing at the time. He looked around the room and saw a few of the others, mostly the first year pages, wearing expressions of uncertainty as well. He was glad he wasn’t the only one; he was sure his sister would have been able to give Myles an accounting of her meal down to the last spoonful.

“Memory is a muscle like any other,” Myles went on. “It must be trained, honed, practiced. If you have never studied the art of noting and retaining small—or even large—details, your mind will not be accustomed to cataloging them. A knight must have an efficient and accurate memory. Perhaps you will be sent to scout an enemy’s position and report back; perhaps you will witness a crime and be expected to provide testimony as an honorable and trustworthy witness. Perhaps you will simply want to write home to your family while you are on distant assignment and will desire to share accurate stories of your deeds and experiences.” He shrugged. “Your memory, your ability to note facts and to retain them without alteration—whether deliberate or unconscious—is another important tool in your armory and one that you must make efforts to train just as you do any other.”

Several boys groaned; Alan looked around, not understanding the source of their distress.

Myles chuckled. “That’s right,” he said, his voice cheerful, “more work. _Mental_ work, too, which I know is everyone’s favorite kind.”

That earned him a few weak laughs and several more groans.

“Don’t worry,” Alan’s portly grandfather told the class, “I won’t be assigning mental memory exercises— _yet_. Now’s not a good time for that; you’re all too busy with your new lessons, and adjusting or re-adjusting to palace life, to concentrate properly. So you get a reprieve on those for the moment. There are several memory lessons coming in your near future though, so keep it in mind as something to work on in your spare time.” Myles smiled, waiting for the desultory laughter to fade. “Right, so you should all be memorization experts by the time I get around to the lesson which means I’ll be able to save myself the work, eh?” He rubbed his hands together and said, “Now, before we got off-track, I think we were talking about the difference between meritocracies and monarchies. There have been several studies made of the various forms of government practiced in the lands that border our own, so if we turn our attention for a moment to Tusaine…”

The rest of the lesson was both fascinating and disjointed and by the time the bell rang Alan’s head was spinning. He dawdled as the other pages filed-out, for once not politely sticking close to Koref’s side, and grinned at his grandfather once they were the only two left.

Myles beamed at him. “I would apologize for not seeking you out to say hello when you arrived, but I thought you would prefer not to have to take the time necessary to coddle an old man in the midst of the chaos of your training’s commencement.”

“If I meet any old men that need coddled I’ll let you know,” Alan retorted cheekily. “I thank you for the forbearance, though; it was a lot more hectic than I expected.”

“Well,” Myles said, his words bland, “you might have had an even worse time of it than you did; imagine if you had left the decision to the last minute?”

Alan ducked his head with a shamefaced grin. “Yes,” he agreed, “that would have been foolish.”

Myles chuckled. “Well, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, but I’m here if you have any problems that I can assist you with. Or if you merely want to talk. They keep you busy, I know, but my schedule at least can generally be cleared at need. And if you find yourself with a free day in the city, do try and drop in on your grandmother, won’t you?”

“At my earliest possible chance,” Alan assured him. “In the meantime I hope you’ll pass along my greetings?”

“Of course,” said Myles. “Now, I know you have to run along to your next lesson, but before you do—how _are_ things going?”

Alan knew his grandfather wasn’t just asking out of politeness so he thought about it before he answered. “Well enough. Hectic, as you know. A bit awkward. We’re all still getting to know each other, and things here are…a lot different than they were at home, especially for some of us.”

Myles nodded shrewdly. “So they are. And for you?”

Alan shrugged. “Well, it’s not my first time at the palace, nor my first time talking with Bazhir, nor my first time seeing girls who can fight…nor my first time having my assumptions tested by you. So I’d say I’ve got a leg up on just about everyone else.”

His grandfather’s bark of laughter was loud and hearty. “I expect, lad,” he told him, “that when it comes to unusual situations, you usually will.”

Alan grinned.


End file.
